TN teen Tarun downs IM Himal, in joint lead
Mumbai, December 30: Tamil Nadu players Tarun V. Kanth and Saravana Krishna P., both recorded upset wins in fourth round matches of the Open event in the 2nd IIFL Wealth Mumbai International Chess Tournament and played at the Mount Litera International School at BKC, Bandra.
The 14-year-old Tarun defeated IM Himal Gusain of Chandigarh to register his fourth consecutive victory. Tarun (ELO 1943) who is rated more than 500 points below his Indian rival Himal (2448) played a patient game to come out trumps. Himal had a chance to play for a draw, but instead tried to go for a win and committed some costly errors which allowed Tarun to snatch a surprise win and the full point.
Saravana, who is rated 2296, defeated ninth seed Hungarian GM Adam Horvath rated 2501.
In yet another upset victory, 10-year old Sreeshwan Maralakshikari who is rated only 1968, beat the fifth seed GM Vitaly Sivuk with the white pieces. Sreeshwan, who is from Andhra Pradesh was struggling to score points against much weaker players until then, but against the Grandmaster, he played with an agility of a seasoned fighter.
There were many other games where the Indian youngsters and lower seeded players managed to take the experienced Grandmasters and International Masters completely by surprise and the titled players had to work hard to even survive. Bihar's 13-year-old Saurabh Anand was close to defeating his second straight Grandmaster but he ended up blundering to suffer a painful defeat.
Indian International Masters—IM Sayantan Das, IM Saptarashi Roy, both from West Bengal, IM Shyaamnikhil P. of Tamil Nadu —won comfortably against their lower rated opponents to join Tarun V Kanth and Ukrainian GM Valeriy Neverov in the lead with 4 points each.
In the Junior category, the first and the third board games between the leaders ended in a draw. This allowed Sankarsha Shelke of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra to break the deadlock and grab the lead by winning his games on the second board and become the leader. After five rounds of play, Sankarsha leads with 5 points.
Results – Open category (round-4, top 10 boards): WGM Toma Katarzyna (2322) 3 pts drew with GM Tukhaev Adam (2516) 3 pts; GM Neverov Valeriy (2478) 4 beat Pranav V. (2040) 3; CM Aditya Mittal (2068) 3 lost to IM Shyaamnikhil P. (2451) 4; Gusain Himal (2448) 3 lost to Tarun V Kanth (1943) 4; Boricha Ketan (1963) 3 lost to IM Saptarshi Roy (2418) 4; Siddharth Sabharishankar (1962) 3 lost to IM Das Sayantan (2371) 4; Bernadskiy Vitaliy (2540) 2.5; beat Nair Sanjeev (1899) 3; Sandipan Chanda (2593) 2.5 beat CM Erigaisi Arjun (2309) 2.5; IM Kathmale Sameer (2313) 2.5 lost to GM Ghosh Diptayan (2570) 3; GM Malakhatko Vadim (2507) 2.5 drew with Sidhant Mohapatra (2267) 2.5.