Pune (Voice News Service): The Indians collectively put up a good display on the third day of the Maharashtra Chess Festival in progress at the Naivedya North Star in Nagpur. Vidit Gujrathi and Raunak Sadhwani were once again at their dazzling best as they defeated Peter Svidler and Nigel Short respectively to take lead in the 16 game Maharshtra Challenge Match. Both have tallied 6 points each while Svidler and Short have scored 3 points each. A victory in the Classical game fetches 3 points. The players will play 4 Classical games, 4 Rapid games and 8 Blitz games against each other.
The Symmetrical English encounter between Vidit Gujrathi and Peter Svidler had the players treading very cautiously in the Opening stage with the Indian appearing slightly better out of the opening. Vidit thought too long on the 12th move, an indication that he may have gone out of his Opening preparation but the exchange of queens followed on the 16th turn and Vidit appeared better.
Play for most part focussed on the queen-side where there were a spate of exchanges at regular intervals.” I did get some edge out of the opening but it needed clinical precision to consolidate on it and missed the way a bit” admitted Vidit later. Ironically Vidit’s knight defying chess basics went to the edge of the board on the 18th turn and virtually paralyzed Svidler’s pieces. Svidler delayed castling till the 18th move and tried to group his pieces together.
Svidlers decision of trying to avoid exchanges proved costly and by then Vidit had better placed pieces. On the 22nd turn Svidler overlooked a tactical stroke in trying to get his bishop into the game and resigned on the next turn when faced with the loss of a piece. A delighted Vidit quipped “ Svidler was a tad ambitious and in trying to evade a disadvantageous position by not exchanging pieces”.
Raunak Sadhwani for the second time in this event opted for the Siclian defence against Nigel Short’s King pawn Opening. The game was a closed Sicilan with Raunak emerging better from the Opening. A positional rook sacrifice for a bishop on the 18th turn by Raunak broke open Short’s castle and Raunak played a patient game thereafter, slowly getting his pieces to better squares to build up an attack.
Short’s defence crumbled and soon Raunak’s queen, knight and bishop were targeting the King even as his central passed pawn threatened to march towards the queening square. Short resigned on the 41st move when threatened with checkmate. “ It was a good game and I enjoyed playing. I am hoping to do well in the final classical game tomorrow” said Raunak.
2ND MAHARASHTRA INTERNATIONAL OPEN Grandmaster chess tournament
The four overnight joint leaders GM Luka Paichadze, IM Raahul V S, FM Harshad S and Sammed Jaykumar Shete playing on the top two boards were involved in draws. Top seed Boris Savchenko defeated FM Goutam Krishna to catch up with the overnight leaders and with 3.5 points is jointly leading with Luka, Raahul, Harshad, Sammed, Vedant Pannesar and Kushagra Mohan. The game between FM Sharon Rao and GM Aleksandrov was in progress at the time of going to press and the winner will join the other leaders.
Raahul adopting the French Defence against Luka on the top board missed a move after his opponent sacrificed a couple of pawns in the Opening to gain attacking possibility and deny him castling. Luka sacrificed a knight on the 18th turn in a neat combination and gained back his pawns. The resultant double rook and pawns ending had Raahul exchanging a rook and creating multiple traps to salvage half point after 55 moves.
Harshad S and Sammed Jaykumar Shete settled for a comfortable draw after 31 moves of closed Ruy-Lopez Opening game. An equal position where each had a queen, two rooks and two minor pieces had them repeating moves to split the point.
RESULTS OF ROUND 3- MAHARASHTRA CHALLENGE MATCH
GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2731)-6 bt GM Peter Svidler (2683)-3
GM Nigel Short (2597)-3 lost to GM Raunak Sadhwani (2627)-6.
RESULTS OF ROUND 4-2ND MAHARASHTRA GM INTERNATIONAL OPEN
GM Paichadze Luka (2513) IM Rahul V S (2299);
FM S Harshad (2211)-3.5 drew IM Sammed Jaykumar Shete (2440)-3.5;
GM Savchenko Boris (2524)-3.5 bt FM Goutham Krishna (2082)-2.5
IM Barsegh van Armen (2373)-3 drew GM Viacheslav V (2514)-3
GM R R Laxman (2299)-3 drew GM Burmakin Vladimir (2492)-3
FM Sharan Rao (2248) GM Aleksandrov Aleksej(2461)
IM Kushagra Mohan (2412)-3.5 bt Potawad Anirudh (1995)-2.5
Kaustav Kundu (2242)-3 drew IM Rohith Krishna S (2411)-3
Sanket Chakravarty (2389)-3 drew Yellumahanthi (1954)-3
Vivaan Vishal Shah (1931)-2.5 lost to FM Panesar Vedant (2387)-3.5
FM Navalgund Niranjan (2200)-2 lost toGM Sengupta Deep (2473)-3
GM M R Venkatesh (2469) -2.5 drew CM Shaik Sumer (2211)-2.5
GM Vorobiov Evgeny (2455)-2 lost to CM Nayak Rajesh (2168)-3
Dere Pushkar (2166) IM Nitish Belurka (2450)
GM Federov Alexei (2449)-3 bt FM Jaiswal Rupesh (2146)-2
Nagare Akhilesh (2139) IM Szpar Milosz (2447)
IM Antonio Dcunha (2417) Anadkat Kartavya (2130)
CM Mayank Chakraborty (2141) GM Mirzoev Azer
