Pune (Voice News Service): After impressive victories in the first round of the Maharashtra Challenge Match both Indian Vidit Gujrathi and Raunak Sadhwani ended on the losing side against Peter Svidler and Nigel Short respectively. Both Indians landed into sever time pressure, down to the last few seconds, literally playing on borrowed time.
Raunak Sadhwani lost his way in the intricacies of the French defence and with severe time pressure ended on the losing side against Nigel Short. Sadhwani opened with the King Pawn and Nigel Short answered with the French Defence. Interestingly the French Defence enjoyed plenty of popularity in the 1990’s with Viktor Korchnoi, Jan Timman and Short employing it often and incidentally Short has authored a book titled ’The French Defence’.
“ I have been playing the French Defence all my life” smiled Short after the game but was quick to add “ I don’t recall exactly where I might have smelled a win”. Raunak opted for the sharp Winawar variation and keeping his King in the centre tried to attack Short’s King who had castled on the queen-side.
Raunak tried to target Short’s King with his queen and rook but could not get much fizz into his attack. The position appeared complicated with most pieces gracing the board and with Raunak running low on time, Short broke through in the centre, forcing the exchange of pieces and prompting Raunak’s resignation on the 35th turn.
The two knights variation in the Tarrasch between Peter Svidler and Vidit Gujrathi had both players pondering long in the Opening and it appeared at times that both were coursing on unknown territory and trying to recollect their Opening preparation.
Vidit’s queen did try to make inroads into enemy territory but Svidler who kept pacing the tournament hall throughout the game forced the queen exchange on 17th turn. Vidit faltered and failed to play accurately and Svidler further forced the exchange of pieces to enter a favourable rook and pawn ending. Peter nursed his passed pawn to score a victory after 39 moves. “ I was not in comfortable territory in the opening but Vidit’s choice of moves in the last half were rather unfortunate” commented Svidler after the game.
2nd Maharashtra Grandmaster International Chess Tournament
Four Players GM Luka Paichadze, IM V S Rahul, IM Sammed Jaykumar Shete and FM S Harshad have emerged as joint leaders with 3 points each after the third round of the 2nd Maharashtra International Open Grandmaster Chess tournament.
Top seed GM Savachenko Boris was held to a draw by IM Armen Barseghyan of Armenia after an intense tussle lasting 77 moves in a Anti Nimzo-Indian Defence. Amongst the upsets in the third round GM M R Venkatesh lost to V S Rahul while Harshad S defeated GM Mirzoev Azer. FM Goutham Krishna continued his impressive run by defeating IM Neelash Saha
After an unprecedented first round where higher rated players were either upset or failed to score expected victories, the second round was more sedate with most of the higher ranked players cruising comfortably. How ever on the second board, WIM Srishti Pandey of Maharashtra held GM Zakhartsov Viacheslav to a draw, rather comfortably. Mayank Chakjraborty of Assam also managed to eke out a draw against eighth seed GM Alexandrov Aleksej of Belarus.
Boris Savchenko scored a facile victory over Niranjan Navalgud in an Italian Opening where he attacked relentlessly on the King-side. A bishop sacrifice on the 23rd move by Boris exposed his opponent’s King and unable to stave off the attack Niranjan resigned on the 34th move. Goutham Krishna impressed on the second day also by holding GM Vitaly Teterev of Belarus to a draw.
RESULTS OF ROUND2 CHALLENGE MATCH
Peter Svidler (2683)-3 bt GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2731) -3
Raunak Sadhwani (2627) -3 lost to GM Nigel Short (2597) -3
2nd Maharashtra International Open Grandmaster Chess tournament Results
Round 3 Results: IM Armen Bareghyan Amen (2373)-2.5-drew GM Savchenko Boris (2524-)- 2.5 ;IM SAmmed Jaykumar Shete (2440) -3 bt GM Babujian Levon (2373)-2 ; GM Mirzoev Azer (2416)-2 lost to FM Harshad S (2211)-3 ; IM Rahul V S (2299)-3 bt GM M R Venkatesh (2); GM Burmakin Vladimir (2492) -2.5 drew Sanket Chakravarty (2389)-2.5; FM Ritviz Parab (2) lost to GM Paichadze Luka (2513)-3 ; GM Zakhartsov Viacheslav (2514) -2.5 bt FM Gaikwad Siddhant (1906)-2 ; GM Aleksandrov Aleksej (2461) -2.5 bt WIM Pandey Shrishti (2188)-1.5 ; GM Deep Sengupta (2473) -2 drew Bhattacharyya Soham (2219)-2 ; IM Szpar Milosz ((2447)-2 drew CM Mayank Chakraborty (2141)-2;
