Kolkata Open: Rozum shoots into sole lead

Ivan Rozum secured a sole five-point lead at the end of the fifth round of the Kolkata International Chess Open on Friday.

GM Narayanan Srinath, playing with black pieces, scored a crucial victory over former World junior champion and GM Abhijeet Gupta to reach 4.5 points. (Representative Image)

Grandmaster Ivan Rozum of Russia got the better of his Indian challenger Deep Sengupta to secure a sole lead with full five points after the completion of the fifth round of LIC Kolkata International Open Grandmaster Chess here on Friday.

Fourth round report: Deep and Ivan share lead

Top seeded Nigel Short and National champion M. R. Lalith Babu traded pieces in regular intervals to draw their game on the second table. GM Narayanan Srinath, playing with black pieces, scored a crucial victory over former World junior champion and GM Abhijeet Gupta to reach 4.5 points.

GM Farrukh Amonatov of Tajikistan and GM Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine also won their games to follow the leader closely with 4.5 points each.

Important results (fifth round) : Ivan Rozum (Rus) 5 bt Deep Sengupta 4, M.R. Lalith Babu 4 drew with Nigel Short (Eng) 4, Abhijeet Gupta 3.5 lot to Narayanan Srinath 4.5, Farrukh Amonatov (Tjk) 4.5  bt S. Nitin 3.5, Ziaur Rahman (Ban) 4 drew with Sandipan Chanda 4, N.R. Vignesh 3.5 lost to Tukhaev Adam (Ukr) 4.5, D. Gukesh 4 drew with Vishnu Prasanna 3.5, K.S. Raghunandan 3.5 drew with Murali Karthikeyan 3.5, Nihal Sarin 4 bt Arjun Kalyan 3, Siva Mahadevan 3 lost to Vladimir Burmakin (Rus) 4, Rajdeep Sarkar 3.5 drew with M. Shyam Sundar 3.5, Deepan Chakkravarthy 4 bt B. Sekar 3.