Victorious Paul, Barbosa take joint lead

Gomez John Paul and Oliver Barbosa, both from Philippines, registered victories in the sixth round to emerge as the joint leaders with six points in the 10th Parsvnath International Open Grandmasters chess tournament at the Ludlow Castle Sports Complex here on Wednesday.

Gomez overcame hosts’ Lalith Babu M R while Oliver beat Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbeksitan. International Master K Rathnakaran lie in second spot, half-a-point drift of the leaders. Eight players including top seed Sandipan Chanda, who beat Vishnu Prasanna in the sixth round match are in joint third position with five points each.

Three Grandmasters suffered shock defeats. Playing with white pieces, untitled Chinese player Zeng Chong Sheng shocked third seed Martyn Kravtsiv of Ukraine.  

Important results (Indians otherwise stated):  Round VI: Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb, 5) lt to Oliver Barbosa (Phi, 6); Lalith Babu M R (4.5) lt to Gomez John Paul (Phi, 6); Karthikeyan P (4.5) drew with Aleksej Aleksandrov (Belarus, 4.5); Zeng Chong Sheng (Chn, 5) bt Martyn Kravtsiv (Ukr, 4); Andrei Deviatkin (Rus, 5) bt Shivananda B S (4); Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus, 5) bt Rahul Sangma (4); Abhijit Kunte (4.5) drew with Bitan Banerjee (4.5); Debashis Das (5) bt Henrik Danielsen (Ice, 4).

Round V: Oliver Barbosa bt Ashwin Jayaram; Gomez John Paul bt Diptayan Ghosh; Vaibhav Suri lt to Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb); Zeng Chong Sheng drew with Sandipan  Chanda; Visnhu Prasanna drew with Abhijit Kunte; Bitan Banerjee drew with Mark Paragua (Phi); Shreyans K Shah lt to Lalith Babu M R; Neelotpal Das drew with Karthikeyan P; Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukr) bt Saptarshi Roy; Saravana Krishnan P bt Mikhail Ulibin (Rus).