Indians dominates Mayor’s Cup Chess as IM P Shyam Nikhil Joins leader GM Diptayan Ghosh

Indians dominates Mayor’s Cup Chess as  IM P Shyam Nikhil Joins leader GM Diptayan Ghosh.
By Vittal Madhav

At the end of 7th round of Mumbai Mayor International Open Chess Tournament 2016 , Presenting partner Zee Learn Ltd and Co-sponsored by LIC and Ankit Gems, at Mount Litera School International, Bandra- IB* school in BKC, Mumbai yesterday’s leader GM Diptayan Ghosh was joined by IM P Shyam Nikhil. Both are sharing the lead with 5.5 points followed by 8 others with 5 points on 2nd place.

The tournament seems to be good for the Indians as 15 out of top 20 players are Indians. IM P Shyam Nikhil while playing with black pieces against GM Sandipan Chanda played not so popular Benko Gambit. With Regular exchange of the pieces, Sandipan who had 2 bishops advantage, is  forced to exchange the bishop for the Knight by Shyam. Although Sandipan managed to get a passed pawn, Shyam exchanged his pieces to play a end game with 3 pawn vs pawn and bishop. Shyam won this ending comfortably in 59 moves.

The game between GM Swapnil Dhopade and Shailesh Dravid ended in a draw in 35 moves, where both the players avoided to take the risk and share the points.

The game on the 3rd board which was played between IM Visakh N R and Himal Gusain lasted for 74 moves with draw as the end product.

The top 10 results are as under.
Gosh Diptayan  2562 bt GM Amonatov Farrukh (TJK) 2614; GM Swapnil S. Dhopade 2504 drew with Shailesh Dravid 2171; IM Visakh N R 2400 drew with Gusain Himal 2440 ; IM Shyaamnikhil P 2415 bt GM Sandipan Chanda 2585; GM Grachev Boris (RUS) 2639 bt Erigaisi Arjun 2351; GM Rahman Ziaur (BAN) 2521 drew with FM Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari 2295; GM Gagare Shardul 2509 drew with Kulkarni Vikramaditya 2278; Aradhya Garg 2274 drew with GM Gleizerov Evgeny (RUS) 2506 IM Krishna C R G 2411 drew with Akash Pc Iyer 2257; IM Abhishek Kelkar 2394 bt Hemant Sharma 2257