Chennai Open: Rathnakaran & Swapnil Dhopade share lead
Jan 2, 2015
Indian International Masters Rathnakaran and Swapnil Dhopade shared the lead with 4.0 points after the fourth round of the 7th Chennai International Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament at Nehru Stadium, Chennai here today.
Top seed Grandmaster Ivan Popov of Russia (3.5) scored over French GM Vladimir Lazarev, staying half a point behind leaders.
The two Indian Railways players derailed their opponents in contrasting games. Rathnakaran scored a crushing win over newly elected Grandmaster Karthikeyan Murali. The Modern game saw Karthikeyan Murali exchanging his crucial fianchetto bishop as early as the tenth move. Subsequent passive play saw Rathnakaran applying huge pressure on the kingside and wrapping up the game in 43 moves.
Mehar Chinna Reddy (India) playing GM Alberto David (Italy)
In the top board, International Master Ramnath Bhuvanesh continued his good work holding GrandmasterCristhian Cruz (Peru) to a draw.
The Slav game between Swapnil S Dhopade and Abhishek Kelkar moved into a double bishop versus double knight ending by 30th turn. Deft maneuvers gave Swapnil a passed pawn which he nurtured with telling effect gaining the full point by 60th move.
Sharing the second spot along with top seed Popov at 3.5 points were Cristhian Cruz (Per), Van Huy Nguyen (Vie), Mikhail Mozharov (Rus), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb), CRG Krishna and N R Vignesh (both India).
GM Evdokimov Alexander (Russia)
Category “A” – Main Results Round 4 (Indians unless specified) :
Ramnath R Bhuvanesh 3.5 drew with Cristhian Cruz (Per) 3.5, K Rathnakaran (4) bt Murali Karthikeyan (3), Van Huy Nguyen (Vie) 3.5 drew with Shardul Gagare (3.5), Swapnil S Dhopade (4) bt Abhishek Kelkar (3), Ivan Popov (Rus) 3.5 bt Vladimir Lazarev (Fra) 2.5, Mikhail Mozharov (Rus) 3.5 bt Siddharth Ravichandran (2.5), Dinesh K Sharma 2.5 lost to Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) 3.5, CRG Krishna 3.5 bt Valery Neverov (Ukr) 2.5, N R Vignesh 3.5 bt Srinath Narayanan 2.5, M Kunal 3 drew with Nikil P Shyam 3, Meher Chinna Reddy 2 lost to Alberto David (Ita) 3, Sabino Brunello (Ita) 3 bt C Praveen Kumar 2
Category “B” – Main Results Round 5:
Raju S (4.5) drew with Neil Franclin S (4.5), Abir Sinha (4.5) drew with Arjun Kalyan (4.5), Anil Kumar O T (4.5) bt Salil Kumar D (3.5), Manigandan S S (4.5) bt Parthasarathy R (3.5), Marthandan K U (4) drew with Dusthageer Ibrahim M (4), Prathish A (3.5) lost to Sahu Rajendra Kumar (4.5), Nanda Kumar T S (4) drew with Arjun Adappa (4), Hari Madhavan N B (4) drew with Karthick Narayanan S (4)
Category “B” – Main Results Round 4:
Salil Kumar D (3.5) drew with Manigandan S S (3.5), Karmukilan S (3) lost to Raju S (4), Toshali V (3.5) drew with Rahul S (3.5), Karthick Narayanan S (3.5) drew with Prathish A (3.5), Dileep Kumar R (3.5) drew with Hari Madhavan N B (3.5), Aarudhra Ganesh (3) lost to Abir Sinha (4), Rajeev V M (3.5) drew with Harshavardhan G B (3.5), Harshini A (3.5) drew with Harshita Guddanti (3.5), Neil Franclin S (4) bt Kasinathan S (3), Isha Sharma (3) lost to Arjun Kalyan (4)
R R Vasudevan
Press Officer
Impressive.