Kolkata Open: Deep and Ivan share lead after fourth round

Top seed Nigel Short is held to a draw; Chithambaram falters.

Deep Sengupta defeated Muhammad Khusenkhojaev of Tajikistan.

Grandmasters Deep Sengupta of India and Ivan Rozum of Russia shot into joint lead netting four points after as many rounds in the LIC Kolkata International Open Chess Tournament, here on Thursday.

Top seeded Nigel Short of England was held to a 16-move draw by young N. R. Vignesh on the top board. Strong performance also came from Abhijeet Gupta who defeated Manik Mikulas of Slovakia in the first Grandmaster fight of the event.

The talking point of the day was the sudden meltdown of GM Aravindh Chithambaram in the last five minutes of the game against D. Gukesh. Chithambaram, who possessed an extra pawn in a drawish ending, was trying hard to provoke his younger opponent to crack under pressure. Instead, he allowed Gukesh to capture a pawn on e3 with check, and resigned immediately in a moment of frustration assuming he was losing a piece on the next move. In the process, he overlooked a resource for himself which would have landed him in a position with equal pawns where he could have defended with a rook against Gukesh’s two minor pieces.

• Nigel Short (Eng) 3.5 drew with N.R. Vignesh 3.5,
• Erigaisi Arjun 3 lost to Ivan Rozum (Rus) 4,
• Muhammad Khusenkhojaev (Taj) 3 lost to Deep Sengupta 4,
• S. Nitin 3.5 drew with Narayanan Srinath 3.5,
• Manik Mikulas (Slo) 2.5 lost to Abhijeet Gupta 3.5,
• Tran Minh Thang 2.5 lost to Farrukh Amonatov 3.5,
• Aravindh Chithambaram 2.5 lost to D. Gukesh 3.5,
• Sandipan Chanda 3.5 bt K. Rathnakaran 2.5,
• Adam Tukhaev (Ukr) 3.5 bt Anand Nadar 2.5,
• Sidhant Mohapatra 2.5 lost to M.R. Lalith Babu 3.5.