GM Sandipan Chanda’s urge to win with black for a place in the leading pack ended in defeat and pushed him a full point behind the leaders after the eighth round of the Kolkata Open chess competition on Tuesday. With two rounds to go, GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam and GM Anton Filippov of Uzbekistan were leading with 6.5 points.
IM S. Satyapragyan, who secured his maiden GM norm with a win over Georgian GM Mikheil Mchdelishvili, was following the leaders on six points with Czech GM Viktor Laznicka and GM Evgeny Postny of Israel. The best-placed Indian, Satyapragyan has to play out of his skin to be where he is because facing him in the ninth round with white is GM Nigel Short of England. Short came back from his seventh-round setback with a win over GM P. Magesh Chandran to join 12 others in the third slot.
Ganguly beats Grover
Ganguly ended the dream run of Sahaj Grover, who had created a flutter by gleaning an incredible 4.5 points in the first seven rounds. Grover is in hunt for a GM norm and can get it in the ninth round itself, if he gets at least a draw with black against IM Sriram Jha.