Chennai Open chess: Pandian upsets GM Gomez

Former junior Asian champion and International Master Pandian Karthikeyan defeated Philippino Grandmaster John Paul Gomez in the seventh round of the SDAT-RMK Chennai Open International Grandmaster chess tournament to move into third spot here Sunday.Top seed Aleksandrov Aleksej (Belarus) and Yu Ruiyuan (China) shared the lead with 6.5 points, scoring over Vaibhav Suri (India) and Oleksienko Mikhailo (Ukraine) respectively.

Sharing the third spot were GM Hoang Thanh Trang (Hungary), Karthikeyan, Zeng Chongsheng, and Ma Qun (both China) at 6.0 points.

Aleksandrov scored a smooth, technical 68-move win in the top board, while Ruiyuan shocked higher rated Grandmaster Oleksienko Mikhailo in an attacking Sicilian game.

Karthikeyan showed superior preparation as he outplayed Gomez. Gaining advantage right out of the opening, Karthikeyan maintained a small edge right through. Stretching himself to equalise Gomez was found wanting in an exchange down position.

Speaking after his victory Karthikeyan said: “I followed the game from Vishy Anand-Vallejo Pons, Bilbao 2011 and gained initiative early. Slowly, I improved upon the position, gained technical edge and converted it to full point.”

Upsets were the order of the day in the top boards as untitled Ruiyuan (ELO 2491) defeated Mikhailo of Ukraine. Another Ukraine Grandmaster, defending champion Kravtsiv Martyn went down to GM Hoang Thanh Trang of Hungary in the third board.

Results (Round 7): Aleksandrov Aleksej (Belarus) 6.5 bt Vaibhav Suri (5.5), Yu Ruiyuan (China) 6.5 bt Oleksienko Mikhailo (Ukraine) 5.5, Hoang Thanh Trang (Hungary) 6.0 bt Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukraine) 5, Himanshu Sharma (5.5) drew Sethuraman S P (5.5), Rahman Ziaur (Bangladesh) 5 lost to Zeng Chongsheng (China) 5, Karthikeyan P (6) bt Gomez John Paul(Philippines) 5, Ma Qun (China) 6 bt Debashis Das (5), Venkatesh M R (5.5) bt Konguvel Ponnuswamy (5), Danielsen Henrik (Iceland) 5 drew Swayams Mishra (5), Suvrajit Saha(4.5) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy J (5.5), Ramnath Bhuvanesh R (4.5) lost to Dzhumaev Marat (Uzbekistan) 5.5, Neelotpal Das (5) drew Praveen Kumar C (5), Babu N Sudhakar (5) drew Barua Dibyendu (5), Laxman R R (5) drew Narayanan S L (5), Mohota Nisha (4.5) lost to Vakhidov Jahongir (Uzbekistan) 5.5, Shashikant Kutwal (5.5) bt Rathnakaran K (4.5), Nitin S (4.5) lost to Ashwath R (5.5), Ravichandran Siddharth (5.5) bt Aravindh Chithambaram V R (4.5), Vishnu Prasanna V (5.5) bt Lokesh P (4.5), Akshayraj Kore (5.5) bt Vinoth Kumar M (4.5).