GM Aleksej of Belarus defeated overnight leader Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri to be in joint lead along with Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan after the end of the eighth round of the premier section ofParsvnath International Chess Festival now underway here.

Round 8 video by Vijay Kumar

Dzhumaev accounted for Commonwealth champion M R Lalith Babu to match Aleksandrov on 6.5 points after the eighth round and these two will clash in the penultimate round now.

Aleksandrov ended the dream run of Suri from the black side of a closed Ruy Lopez. The Delhi boy could not keep pace with his counter-attack when black’s pieces came hurling at the kingside and the result was a smooth attack and a swift victory for Aleksandrov.

Top board battle between GM Vaibhav Suri and GM Aleksej Aleksandrov

Dzhumaev, who recently won the strong Kolkata open, made short work of Lalith Babu in a Caro Kann defense game. Playing white, Marat went for a less-played system and got a dangerous attack right from the early middle game. An erroneous plan by Lalith Babu resulted in lost position pretty quickly and Dzhumaev clinched the issue in a mere 24 moves.

With Aleksandrov and Dzhumaev in front four players – Henrik Teske of Germany, Kiril Kuderinov of Kazakhstan,Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and Suri share the third spot with six points apiece.

Teske defeated Sahaj Grover from the black side of a Queen pawn opening. The German GM was worse in the endgame but ended up swindling his young opponent.

IM Vakhidov Jahongir of Uzbekistan and GM Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh

Kuderinov turned the tables on Lu Shanglei of China after struggling in the middle game while Vakhidov had luck smiling at him when Bangladeshi Grandmaster Niaz Murshed forgot to keep track of his clock and lost on time.

Murali Karthikeyan kept himself in contention for a Grandmaster norm after drawing with Magesh Chandran Panchanathan. The Chennai-based 13-year old took his tally to a very impressive 5.5 points and a draw in the next round should be enough to get him his maiden Grandmaster norm. Kuderinov is another player who is in with a chance to make a Grandmaster norm.

Amongst other Indians in the fray, Diptayan Ghosh did well to hold top seed Abhijeet Gupta to a draw. With five points from eight games, Gupta is out of contention.

GM Raset Ziatdinov and IM Stany GA

GM Oliver Barbosa clinched title in Odisha International chess meet

The 4th Odisha International GM Open Chess Tournament took place from 29th May to 5th June at the Banquet Hall, Campus 6, KIIT University Campus, Bhubaneswar – 24, Odisha, India.

The tournament is organized by the All Orissa Chess Association, KIIT University Bhubaneswar and under the guidance of All India Chess Federation. 249 players from 11 countries competed in the 10-rounds Swiss event.

GM Oliver Barbosa from Philippines took a clear first place with 8.5/10 points and the prize of Rs. 2,00,000/-. Earlier this year Barbosa won another strong tournament in India – Parsvnath International Open.

GM Oliver Barbosa

Most of the top rated participants migrate to Mumbai to continue the tour in the 5th Mayor’s Cup International Chess Tournament.

Last year winner in Odisha (Orissa) was GM Aleksej Aleksandrov.

Final standings:

1 GM Barbosa Oliver PHI 2550 – 8.5
2 GM Chadaev Nikolai RUS 2563 – 8
3 IM Grover Sahaj IND 2506 – 8
4 GM Hoang Thanh Trang HUN 2449 – 8
5 GM Podolchenko Evgeniy BLR 2464 – 8
6 IM Vaibhav Suri IND 2485 – 8
7 IM Vishnu Prasanna V IND 2431 – 7.5
8 GM Deviatkin Andrei RUS 2577 – 7.5
9 IM Debashis Das IND 2425 – 7.5
10 GM Gomez John Paul PHI 2507 – 7.5
11 GM Aleksandrov Aleksej BLR 2606 – 7.5
12 GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J IND 2461 – 7.5
13 IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh R IND 2355 – 7.5
14 GM Paragua Mark PHI 2521 – 7
15 GM Sengupta Deep IND 2554 – 7
16 Gusain Himal IND 2271 – 7
17 IM Venkatesh M R IND 2517 – 7
18 FM Ghosh Diptayan IND 2418 – 7
19 FM Rajesh V A V IND 2364 – 7
20 GM Laxman R R IND 2417 – 7
21 IM Priyadharshan K IND 2393 – 7
22 IM Gara Anita HUN 2329 – 7
23 WGM Meenakshi Subbaraman IND 2300 – 7
24 Arun Karthik R IND 2277 – 7
25 GM Ziatdinov Raset UZB 2370 – 6.5
26 Karthikeyan Murali IND 2329 – 6.5
27 Pradeep Kumar R A IND 2269 – 6.5
28 GM Kunte Abhijit IND 2538 – 6.5
29 CM Prince Bajaj IND 2255 – 6.5
30 IM Shivananda B S IND 2363 – 6.5
31 IM Sangma Rahul IND 2327 – 6.5
32 IM Karthikeyan P IND 2421 – 6.5
33 FM Das Sayantan IND 2251 – 6.5
34 Kathmale Sameer IND 2241 – 6.5
35 Phadke Sohan IND 2266 – 6.5
36 Bitan Banerjee IND 2342 – 6.5
37 GM Stupak Kirill BLR 2513 – 6.5
38 WGM Padmini Rout IND 2345 – 6.5
39 IM Anwesh Upadhyaya IND 2413 – 6.5
40 Praveen Prasad P IND 2248 – 6.5
41 Sahoo Utkal Ranjan IND 2218 – 6.5
42 IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy IND 2361 – 6.5
43 Roy Prantik IND 2210 – 6.5
44 IM Himanshu Sharma IND 2424 – 6.5
45 Pranav Vijay IND 2174 – 6.5
46 FM Chatterjee Debaraj BAN 2316 – 6.5
47 Sidhant Mohapatra IND 2209 – 6.5
48 Tiwari Arjun IND 2244 – 6.5
49 Padhya Saumil IND 2236 – 6.5
50 Michelle Catherina P IND 2073 – 6.5