Goa's Anurag Mhamal steals the limelight; Marat Dzhumaev rolls on
Goa's Anurag Mhamal held Asian Junior Champion P. Karthikeyan (ELO 2327) to continue his fine showing in the seventh round of the 6th Parsvnath International Chess tournament now in progress here. With this result, Anurag has turned in a 2430 rating ELO performance and will be gaining tremendous amount of ELO points from this tournament. Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan continued with his winning ways and defeated top seed GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran to go to the clear lead.
With his seventh victory on the trot, Marat Dzhumaev made sure he kept nearest contender GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly a half point behind even as the latter showed some imaginative chess to beat G B Prakash.
On Friday, Ganguly and Dzhumaev meet and in the opinion of experts, this contest will be the decider to determine the winner in this biggest open event of the country.
As many as six players share the third spot on 6 points apiece. They are, Grandmasters Elizbar Ubilava of Spain, Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan, Nguyen Anh Dung of Vietnam, Ziaur Rahaman of Bangladesh, GM-in-waiting Abhijeet Gupta and Debashish Das who staked his claim for an IM norm at the expense of GM norm holder Ashwin Jayaram.
Expectedly, Dzhumaev went for complications against Maghami who played the Sicilian defense as black. It was a Rossolimo attack by the Uzbek that led to a wild position after he sacrificed a piece for just a pawn early in the opening. Maghami was quick to recover from this jolt as he gave back the extra material and managed a reasonable position. However with exchanges at regular intervals, Dzhumaev converted to a better rook and pawns endgame where Maghami was simply outmanoeuvred.
It was a long theoretically battle that ensued between Ganguly and pRakash on second board where the former gained with every exchange. In his bid to equalise, Prakash miscalculated his chances in the king and pawns endgame and Ganguly's calculation proved just perfect. The game lasted 64 moves and Ganguly was down to his last pawn when Prakash resigned.
Seventh round (Indians unless specified): Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb, 7) beat Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri, 5.5 ); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (6.5) beat G. B. Prakash ( 5.5); Igor Kurnosov (Rus,5.5) drew with Elizbar Ubilava (Esp, 6); K. Ratnakaran (5.5) drew with Abhijit Kunte (5.5); Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 6) beat Pravin Thipsay (5); S. Arun Prasad (5) lost to Nguyen Anh Dung (Vie, 6); Enamul Hossain (Ban, 5.5) drew with Tania Sachdev (5.5); Abhijeet Gupta (6) beat Zhanibek Amanov (Kaz, 5); Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 6) beat Bitan Banerjee (5); Debashis Das (6) beat Aswin Jayaram (5);
SOURCE: Sameer Salgaocar - President - GSCA
