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Maxim Turov
maintains lead - Chennai Open - 2010
By R.Anantharam, International
Arbiter and Media Incharge
Maxim Turov of Russia increased his chances
to clinch the title in the Chennai Open 2010 international chess
tournament, sponsored by LIC & ONGC and organized by Sports
Promotion Foundation, Chennai. In the tenth and penultimate
round today, he had a safe 41 move draw against Vikramaditya
Kamble of Railways. Maxim is on 9 points and closely on his
heels are former national champion M.R. Lalith Babu of A.P. and
Bangladesh GM Ziaur Rahman on 8.5 points. Lalith Babu had a well
deserved victory over GM Dmitry Ktyakvin of Russia. Maxim has
been pitted against Ziaur and Lalith Babu crosses swords with
the Filippino IM Richard Bitoon. A pyrotechnic display is
expected on the top board, as Ziaur also has chances to win the
title, if he beats Maxim.
Barring the first board, the other top boards went into full
distance, as players fought for supremacy. Dmitry
sacrificed his knight by playing Nh4 on the 17th move, to open
the castled king side against Lalith Babu. Thogh there were less
pices on the board, the game became complicated and Lalith
managed to maintain the upper hand. After exchanging the queens,
Lalith grabbed another knight on the 67th move forcing a win.
With this win, Lalith also earned his second GM norm.
Ziaur Rahman sacrificed his knight for two pawns against Rinat
Jhumabyev to get an attacking position. Though Rinat was a piece
up, Ziaur’s queen and rook combined beautifully to grab Rinat’s
rook. Immediately Rinat surrendered. This is the first loss to
Rinat in this tournament.
Asian Junior champion Ashwin Jayaram also had a convincing
victory over GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan in a Pirc defence
game, with an onslaught right from the start. He faces Siddharth
tomorrow and interestingly there are three Indian IMs and
untitled Siddharth among the eight players on the top four
boards of the final round. Former Commonwealth champion RB.
Ramesh of Tamil Nadu made an exchange sacrifice to create a
passer pawn on the 27th move against former under 25 national
champion B.T. Muralikrishnan of Railways. When he realized that
there was no compensation later, he gave up the fight
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Home Published
on February 02nd , 2010
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