Sandipan Chanda beats Mikhalevski

By S. Sabanayakan

KOLKATA, FEB. 12. Grandmaster Joseph Gallagher of Switzerland emerged the sole leader at the end of the seventh round of the 12th Goodricke International Open chess tournament at the Gorky Sadan here on Monday. The day's highlight was Indian International Master Sandipan Chanda's victory over Israeli Grandmaster Victor Mikhalevski. Chanda occupied the second position with 5.5 points.

The 17-year-old Chanda, a class XII commerce student, won his fourth consecutive match in this meet. He played brilliantly to outplay Mikhalevski in a Ruy Lopez game. Chanda, who earned a GM norm from last year's Goodricke meet, has a fine chance of earning his second norm if only he can garner 1.5 points from the next two rounds. Chanda plays leader Gallagher on the top board in the eighth round.

Chanda pushed his pawn on e6 and f6 in the 19th and 24th moves which proved fatal to the Israeli GM. Under severe time pressure, Mikhalevski failed to retrieve his position and lost in 41 moves.

On the top board, Buenavent Villamayor blundered a rook against Gallagher to gift full points. GM Dibyendu Barua opted for the Guico Piano against Maxim Sorokin and found the Argentine GM ready for it. Sorokin improved on Vladimirov's opening and drew the game.

Double GM norm holder G.B. Prakash of India lost to top seed GM Andrei Kharlov of Russia in the Pannov-Botvinnik variation of the Caro Kann defence. With this loss, Prakash's final norm prospects receded considerably.

Bangla IM Ziaur Rahman improved his final GM norm chances with a comfortable victory over GM Igor Rausis of Latvia in a Catalan opening. Zia had a rook, bishop and knight in addition to a passed pawn in the centre. His opponent had two rooks. Zia played the end game correctly to win.

Koneru Humpy fell to WGM S. Vijayalakshmi's guile after she lost a piece in the middle game. IM norm aspirant Nassir Wajih gave a fine performance to hold National champion GM Abhijit Kunte in an irregular variation of the Sicilian defence.

The results (Indians unless stated): Buenavent Villamayor (Phi) 5 lost to Joseph G. Gallagher (Sui) 6; Dibyendu Barua 5 drew with Maxim Sorokin (Arg) 5; Sandipan Chanda 5.5 bt Victor Mikhalevski (Isr) 4.5; Andrei Kharlov (Rus) 5 bt G.B. Prakash 4; Nassir Wajih 4.5 drew with Abhijit Kunte 4.5; Ziaur Rahman (Ban) 5 bt Igors Rausis (Lat) 4; C.S. Gokhale 4.5 drew with P. Harikrishna 4.5; R.B. Ramesh 4.5 drew with Lanka Ravi 4.5; Tejas Bakre 3.5 lost to Evgeny Vladimirov (Kaz) 4.5; T.S. Ravi 4 drew with Dimitri Komarov (Ukr) 4; Dimitri Reinderman (Ned) 4.5 bt P.D.S. Girinath 3.5; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri) 4.5 bt Datu Idelfanso (Phi) 3.5; Alexei Barsov (Uzb) 4.5 bt Dinesh K. Sharma 3.5; Koneru Humpy 3.5 lost to S. Vijayalakshmi 4.5; Gurpreetpal Singh 4 drew with Tomasz Markowski (Pol) 3.5; Alexie Khamatgaleev (Rus) 4 bt N. Sanjay 3; Anup Deshmukh 3 lost to Nelson Mariano (Phi) 4; S. Satyapragyan 3 lost to Lunge Malupande (Zam) 4; Normunds Miezis (Lat) 3.5 bt Ponnuswamy Konguvel 2.5; Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban) 3 drew with Amon Simutowe (Zam) 3; Surya Shekhar Ganguly 3 drew with Joana Dworakowska (Pol) 3; Neelotpal Das 3 drew with Rahul Shetty 3; Jayant Gokhale 3 drew with Sriram Jha 3; Arghyadip Das 2.5 lost to Chito Garma (Phi) 3.5; Saheli Dhar-Barua 3 drew with Krishnamoorthy Murugan 3; S. Meenakshi 2 lost to Deep Sengupta 3.5; Christian Brauer (Ger) 2 lost to B.T. Muralikrishnan 3; Vishal Sareen 3 bt Oleg Boricsev (Hun) 2; Saptarshi Roy 2.5 bt Abhijit Gupta 2; Harkamal Singh Sandhu 1.5 lost to Julia Galianina (Rus) 2.5; Shankar Roy 2.5 bt Pankaj Joshi 1.5; Saheli Nath 0.5 lost to Anoori Shah 2.

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