Sport

Lahiri stuns Solodovnichenko; Chinmay holds Magesh Chandran

NEW DELHI: The Ukrainians are surely feeling the heat in Delhi’s not-so-severe winter. After top seed Alexander Areshchenko tumbled on Sunday, it was the turn of fifth seed Yuri Solodovnichenko to slip on Monday after running into former Commonwealth champion Atanu Lahiri in the third round of the Parsvnath International chess tournament here.

With 14 of the top 15 boards producing decisive verdicts, it was clear that most big names were getting ready for the stiffer challenges ahead.

When the dust settled, 27 players emerged with perfect scores.

Most of the leading contenders posted convincing victories against experienced rivals. However, GM Magesh Chandran surprisingly dropped half a point to Chinmay Kulkarni and Bangladesh’s veteran Niaz Murshed did likewise against Abhishek Das.

Former National ‘A’ player G.B. Joshi stunned R.R. Laxman, the recently crowned National under-25 champion.

The surprises included the defeat of triple GM-norm holder M.S. Thejkumar to Vinay Kumar Matta.

But the star of the day was Lahiri. This articulate campaigner from Kolkata made a mockery of the rating difference of 261 points to upstage Solodovnichenko, rated 2571.

Playing white, Lahri took his time for some precise calculations and finally uncorked a bishop-sacrifice on the 30th move.

A move later, Lahiri followed it up by giving up his rook for a bishop and pawn to break open his rival’s castled king on the queen’s side.

By this time, the Ukrainian was obviously in deep trouble. In desperation, Solodovnichenko sacrificed his queen but it did not help his cause. Lahiri patiently placed his queen on a strategic square to force an immediate resignation.

The victory earned Lahiri was fourth-round showdown with his city-mate, GM Dibyendu Barua.

On the other leading boards, GMs Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Parimarjan Negi and Abhijit Kunte won as expected to keep the Indian challenge unscathed.

The results (Indians unless stated): Third round: Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 3) bt Rahul Shetty (2); Anup Deshmukh (2) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (3); Parimarjan Negi (3) bt Akshat Khamparia (2).

Atanu Lahiri (3) bt Yuri Sololodvnichenko (Ukr, 2); R. Premnath (2) lost to Abhijit Kunte (3); Anuar Asmagambetov (Kaz, 3) bt J. Ramakrishna (2); Joydeep Dutta (2) lost to Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 3).

Shukhrat Safin (3) bt Soumyaranjan Mishra (2); P. Maheswaran (2) lost to Mikhail Ulibin (Rus, 3); Petr Kostenko (Kaz, 3) bt Shashikant Kutwal (2); Dibyendu Barua (3) bt Akash Thakur (2); P. Praveen Prasad (2) lost to Neelotpal Das (3).

P. Magesh Chandran (2.5) drew with Chinmay Kulkarni (2.5); G.B. Joshi (3) bt R.R. Laxman (2); M.R. Lalith Babu (3) bt T. Purushothaman (2); Anwesh Upadhyaya (2.5) drew with Justin Sarkar (USA, 2.5); Vidit Gujarati (3) bt Vishnu Prasanna (2); Arindam Mukherjee (2.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (2.5); Gurpreet Pal Singh (2.5) drew with K. Ratnakaran (2.5).

Niaz Murshed (Ban, 2.5) drew with Abhishek Das (2.5); Shreyansh Daklia (2.5) drew with M. Shyam Sundar (2.5); M.S. Thejkumar (2) lost to Vinay Kumar Matta (3); Mehar Chinna Reddy (2) lost to S.P. Sethuraman (3); P. Saravana Krishna (2.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy (2.5); Saurabh Kherdekar (2.5) drew with Himanshu Sharma (2.5).

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