Chess: Gujrathi beats Arsovic, remains in joint lead in Bulgaria

Varna: Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi defeated International Master Zoran Arsovic of Serbia to remain in joint lead with three points after the end of the third round of Grand Europe Golden Sands International Chess tournament here. After rocking victories in the previous round, Shardul Gagare and Anurag Mahamal ran out of steam and went down to compatriots Grandmasters M R Venkatesh and M Shyam Sundar respectively. Venkatesh, Sundar, Gujrathi and youngest Indian GM in the fray Sahaj Grover share the lead with Zbynek Hracek of Czech Republic, Tamir Nabaty of Israel, Vladislav Nevednichy of Romania, David Paravyan of Russia and Sanal Vahap of Turkey with six rounds still to come in this 40000 Euro prize money tournament. It turned out to be a mixed day for the Indians at the top as Ashwin Jayaram survived a difficult endgame to hold Dragan Solka of Turkey to a draw while N Srinath did well to draw with Bulgarian GM Vasil Spasov. [caption id=“attachment_868997” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  It turned out to be a mixed day for the Indians at the top as Ashwin Jayaram survived a difficult endgame to hold Dragan Solka of Turkey to a draw while N Srinath did well to draw with Bulgarian GM Vasil Spasov. Reuters[/caption] On the flip side from the Indian perspective, Turkish youngster Sanal Vahap defeated GM S Arun Prasad and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta was held to a draw by Iveri Chighladze of Georgia. Both Gupta and Prasad are amongst those who have two points. The Indian ladies continued to perform excellently. R Bharathi took her tally to two points after drawing with International Master Radoslav Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Bhakti Kulkarni proved her first round draw with Abhijeet Gupta was no flash in the pan as she held another regarded Grandmaster – Levente Vajda of Romania – to a draw. Eesha Karavade and Kiran Manisha Mohanty bounced back in the tournament with victories in the third round but Avetik Grigoryan defeated National women’s champion Mary Ann Gomes. The Indian youngsters had a good day as Diptayan Ghosh, Murali Kartikeyan and Aravindh Chithambaram scored fine victories over their opponents. Ghosh is on 2.5 points while Karthikeyan and Chithambaram have two points each. Among the leaders, Grover was in fine nick in his victory over Manuel Valles of France while Vidit Gujrathi made use of his growing positional acumen. Playing black against an English opening, Gujrathi lured Arsovic in to simplifications that favoured the Indian and did not give any chances. Arsovic lost a rook for a minor piece in the endgame that ensued and it was all over in just 33 moves. Indian results round 3 (Indians unless stated): Dragan Solak (Tur, 2.5) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (2.5); Tamir Nabaty (Isr, 3) beat Swapnil Dhopade (2); N Srinath (2.5) drew with beat Vasil Spasov (Bul, 2.5); Zoran Arsovic (Srb, ) lost to Vidit Gujrathi (3); Sanal Vahap (Tur, 3) beat S Arun Prasad (2); M R Venkatesh beat Shardul Gagare (2); Anurag Mhamal (2) lost to M Shyam Sundar (3); Manuel Valles (Fra, 2) lost to Sahaj Grover (3); Mary Ann Gomes (1.5) lost to Avetik Grigoryan (Arm, 1.5); Iveri Chighladze (Geo, 2) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (2); G Akash (2) drew with Mircea-Emilian Parligras (Rou, 2); Deep Sengupta (2.5) beat Omar Noaman (UAe, 1.5); G N Gopal (2.5) Atanas Dimitrov (Gre, 1.5); G A Stany (2) drew with Evgeny Sveshnikov (Lat, 2); Diptayan Ghosh (2.5) beat Abdalla Luiz Guilherme Aurell (Bra, 1.5); Radoslav Dimitrov (Bul, 2) drew with R Bharathi (2); Soumya Swaminathan (2) drew with Evgenij Ermenkov (Bul, 2); Levente Vajda (Rou, 2) drew with Bhakti Kulkarni (2); Debashis Das (2) beat Kazbek Primbetov (Kaz, 1); Murali Karthikeyan (1.5) drew Michael Tscharotschkin (Ger, 1.5); Eesha Karavade (2) beat Alexander Kiselev (Rus, 1); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (2) beat Velislav Kukov (Bul, 1); Vadim Skomorokhin (Rus, 1.5) drew with Gireman Ja (1.5); Sagar Shah (2) beat Velizar Sofranov (Bul, 1); Alessandro Bonafede (Ita, 2) beat Rucha Pujari (1); Atanas Tonchev Kolev (Bul, 1) lost to Sayantan Das (2); Vasilij Gagarin (Rus, 2) beat N Raghavi (1); Aravindh Chithambaram (2) beat Sergey Romanov (Rus, 1); Stanislav Jasny (Cze, 2) beat G K Monnisha (1); Tijana Blagojevic (Mne, 1) lost to Nisha Mohota (2); R Vaishali (0.5) lost to Sidhant Mohapatra (1.5); Y Saranya (0.5) lost to Kosta Angelov (Bul, 1.5); Srija Seshadri (1) beat Mihai Hlinschi (Rou, 0); Parnali Dharia (1) beat Kerem Ozcan (Tur, 0); Sunyasakta Satpathy (1) beat Mykhalo Galinskyi (Ukr, 0). PTI