Chanda holds Korchnoi

By Manuel Aaron

CALCUTTA, FEB. 11. Sandipan Chanda continued his excellent run in the 11th Goodricke International Open. He drew against famed Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi in the sixth round on Friday.

With six of the top seven games ending in draws, American Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov keeps his one point lead. On the top table, Kaidanov was held to a draw by Indian International Master Abhijit Kunte.

Kaidanov has 5.5 points and is followed a point behind by a group of seven players - Grandmasters Korchnoi of Switzerland, Vladimirov of Kazakhstan, Lalic of England, Maxim Sorokin of Argentina and the Indian norm hunters Sasikiran, Kunte and Sandipan Chanda - with 4.5 points each. Five more rounds remain in this 74-player, 21-nation, 9-round Swiss.

Korchnoi was very angry after he conceded the draw to Chanda on the 41st move. ``I played awfully and I don't want to analyse!'' he told Chanda after the game. Korchnoi also refused to talk with press and left, shaking his head in disbelief.

Against the Slav Defence of Chanda, Korchnoi built up a strategically superior position. White had enormous pressure against the backward black pawn on c5. It looked as though Chanda would lose this game. But in the late middle-game Korchnoi allowed Chanda to rush his a-pawn against his castled position on the queen-side and create counter-chances while he seemed to have no plan of his own.

It was a middle-game with only queens and rooks. Thinking optimistically, Chanda switched his queen from the queen's flank to the king-side and started operating against the white king in conjunction with his rook which was defending the c5 pawn for long. When Chanda's queen and rook were becoming very active, Korchnoi exchanged off the queens and drew the game.

The other top boards ended in peace rather quickly. While Abhijit Kunte versus Gregory Kaidanov ended without much excitement in just 13 moves, the Kazak Grandmaster Evgeny Vladimirov's game against Sasikiran had a lot of action though it ended in 15 moves to the disappointment of the large number of spectators.

The game between Bangladesh International Master Ziaur Rahman and Vladimir Akopian of Armenia was drawn in just 12 moves.

On the fifth table there was an exciting battle between G.B. Prakash and Chinese GM Peng Xiaomin. After Prakash missed some strong continuations in the white side of a King's Indian Defence the position became double-edged. With both sides going for each others throats the Chinese finally drew by perpetual check with his rooks doubled along white's second rank.

Remarkably, International Master Tejas Bakre held Alexandre Goloshchapov of Ukraine to a draw. Playing the Sicilian Defence sensibly, Bakre kept his king in the centre while methodically rushing his pawns on the grandmaster's castled position on the queen-side. After 20 moves the game was agreed drawn when Bakre's position was slightly better and he was poised to attack whereas white's position was sterile.

Aarthie Ramaswamy held Uzbek International Master Tahir Vakhidov to a draw in 20 moves. The proposal for the draw came from the Uzbek who has a high rating of 2503.

The Chinese Woman Grandmaster who has been having a poor tournament so far, played a very beautiful attacking game against IM Neeraj Mishra. She conducted a brilliantly conceived king-side attack, starting with the sacrifice of rook for bishop. Mishra gave up when he was being mated.

Important results (sixth round): Kunte 4.5 drew with Kaidanov (U.S.) 5.5; Korchnoi (Swi) 4.5 drew with Chanda 4.5; Vladimirov (Kaz) 4.5 drew with Sasikiran 4.5; Ziaur Rahman (Ban) 4 drew with Akopian (Arm) 4; G.B. Prakash 4 drew with Peng Xiaomin (Chn) 4; Jha 3.5 lost to Sorokin (Arg) 4.5; Goloschapov (Ukr) 4 drew with Bakre 4; Humpy 3.5 lost to Lalic (Eng) 4.5; V. Saravanan 3 lost to Iordachescu (Moldova) 4; J. Horvath (Hun) 4 bt C.S. Gokhale 3; G.P. Singh 3 lost to Dao Thien Hai (Vie) 4; Yurtayev (Kirgiz) 4 bt R.G. Shetty 3; Aarthie 3.5 drew with Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) 3.5; Roeder (Ger) 4 bt Suvrajit Saha 3; Girinath 3 lost to Ibragimov (Rus) 3.5; R.B. Ramesh 3.5 bt Shankar Roy 2.5; Satyapragyan 3.5 bt Kidambi 2.5; Visweswaran 2.5 lost to D.V. Prasad 3.5; Webster (Eng) 3 drew with Koshy 3; T.S. Ravi 3.5 bt J.S. Gokhale 2.5; Konguvel 3 drew with Arun Vaidya 3; Harikrishna 3.5 bt Saptarshi Roy 2.5; Blatny (Cze) 2.5 drew with Sudhakar Babu 2.5; Mithrakanth 2 lost to P.M. Thipsay 3; Qin (Chn) 3 bt Neeraj Mishra 2; Anup Deshmukh 2.5 drew with Ganguly 2.5; G.B. Joshi 3 bt Vijayalakshmi 2; R. Bandopadhyay 2 lost to Reefat bin Sattar (Ban) 3; Shantharam 2 lost to Payen (Fra) 3; Najdoski (Mac) 2.5 bt Chandanani 2; Azer Mirzoev (Aze) 2.5 bt Dipanjan Das 1.5; Imocha 2 bt Collas (Fra) 1.

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