Gibraltar Chess: Sandipan Chanda shuts out Ivanchuk in 23 moves

Sandipan Chanda defeated eighth seed Vassily Ivanchuk in 23 moves to take his tally to five points and clinch the second spot at the Gibraltar Masters chess tournament.

The surprise victory over Vassily Ivanchuk raised Sandipan Chanda’s tally to five points and gave him a share of the second spot with four others. (Representative Image)

Sandipan Chanda made his presence felt in the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters by shutting out enigmatic Grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk, seeded eighth, in just 23 moves in the sixth round here on Sunday.

In an eventful game that saw a series of exchanges, Chanda sacrificed a minor piece to advance his queen-side pawns and left Ivanchuk with very little choice.

The surprise victory raised Chanda’s tally to five points and gave him a share of the second spot with four others. Hikaru Nakamura continued to lead at 5.5 points following his first draw, against David Howell, in the competition. Another creditable result for the Indians came from Commonwealth champion Abhijeet Gupta who drew with second seeded Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 32 moves to reach 4.5 points, same as his more illustrious compatriot Pendyala Harikrishna.  

Sixth-round results (involving Indians): Mikhail Antipov (Rus, 5) drew with P. Hari Krishna (4.5); Abhijeet Gupta (4.5) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 4.5); Sandipan Chanda (5) bt Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 4); S. L. Narayanan (4) lost to Wang Hao (Chn, 5); Shardul Gagare (4) lost to Levon Aronian (Arm, 4.5); Debashis Das (4) drew with Varuzhan Akobian (USA, 4); Prithu Gupta (4) drew with Rasmus Svane (Ger, 4); G. N. Gopal (4) drew with Dinara Saduakassova (Kaz, 4); Andrey Esipenko (Rus, 4.5) bt M. R. Venkatesh (3.5); Alexander Huzman (Isr, 4.5) bt Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh (3.5); S. P. Sethuraman (4) bt Lou Yiping (Chn, 3); Prasanna Rao (3.5) drew with Kiril Georgiev (Bul, 3.5); Kateryna Lagno (Rus, 4) bt Swayams Mishra (3); Lilit Mkrtchian (Arm, 3.5) drew with M. R. Lalit Babu (3.5); Padmini Rout (3) lost to Swapnil Dhopade (4); Eric de Haan (Ned, 3) lost to R. Praggnanandhaa (4); Xu Yi (Chn, 3.5) drew with Hemant Sharma (3.5); Nihar Sarin (3.5) bt Dominik Horvath (Aut, 2.5); Bela Khotenashvili (Geo, 3) drew with Raunak Sadhwani (3); Harshit Raja (3.5) bt Gabriela Antova (Bul, 2.5); Salome Melia (Geo, 3.5) bt P. V. Nandhidhaa (2.5); Felix Blohberger (Aut, 3.5) bt Tejaswini Sagar (2.5); Nigel Povah (Eng, 2) lost to C. Sahajasri (3); Gerben Veltkamp (Ned, 2) lost to Nisha Mohota (3); Shalmali Gagare (2) drew with Thomas Lochte (Ger, 2); Matthew Wilson (Eng, 1) lost to Dev Shah (1.5); Mayank Pal (1.5) drew with Simon Marder (Swe, 1.5).