The ninth day at the Parsvnath Commonwealth Chess Championship brought mixed fortunes for Delhi players.
While it was a bad day in office for Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi, International Masters Tania Sachdev and Sahaj Grover managed to hold their Russian opponents. Both Sachdev and Grover have 6.5 points. Overnight leader and second seed, Parimarjan Negi, lost to Russian Grandmaster Maletin Pavel. Negi’s loss put Pavel in sole lead. The Russian has eight points.
Negi and Russian Grandmaster Dmitry Bocharov, who beat Uzbek GM Saidali Iuldachev in the ninth round, now trail the leader by half a point. Grover, who has drawn five out of his nine matches, signed peace treaty with Russian GM Dmitry Kokarev. “I was in minus position in the middle game,” Grover said. “A draw was the best option.”
In a match that lasted over five hours, Sachdev held top seed Alexey Dreev of Russia. The peace treaty was signed after a marathon 143 moves. “ It was a draw for the last one-and-a-half hour of the match for the both of us,” said 23-year-old. “We both were trying to win it somehow but it was impossible to come out of the stalemate.”
Another Delhi Grandmaster Sriram Jha drew with Abhishek Das. Jha has garnered 6 points.
{{/usCountry}}Another Delhi Grandmaster Sriram Jha drew with Abhishek Das. Jha has garnered 6 points.
{{/usCountry}}In other encounters, Matta Vinay Kumar stunned Argentinean Grandmaster Anton Kovalyov while Karnataka lad, Girish A Koushik, defeated former world junior girls champion, D. Harika, who had held Dreev on Saturday.
Meanwhile, International Master Lalith Babu got the better of Ramnath Bhuvanesh to achieve a nine-game International Master norm. Also, Fide Master Sai Krishna completed his formalities for an IM norm by beating Swapnil Dhopade.
Important Results Round-9: GM P Maletin (Russia) (8) beat GM Parimarjan Negi (7.5); GM S Iuldachev (Uzebkistan) (6.5) lost to GM Dmitry Bocharov (Russia) (7.5); GM Abhijeet Gupta (7) drew with FM Prasanna Rao (7).