Indians dominate the IIFL Wealth Mumbai International

Indians dominate the IIFL Wealth Mumbai International

Mumbai, 30 December 2016: Tamil Nadu players Tarun V Kanth and Saravana Krishna P. caused major upsets in the fourth round of the 2nd IIFL Wealth Mumbai International Open. Saravana Krishna, who is rated 2296, defeated ninth seed Hungarian GM Adam Horvath rated 2501. 14-year-old Tarun V Kanth registered his fourth consecutive victory by defeating IM Himal Gusain of Chandigarh.

Tarun was rated more than 500 Elo points below Himal and the latter could have forced a draw. But as the situation would have it, he decided to continue playing for a win and ended up losing. Young Tarun has delivered a staggering 2711 performance so far and is the biggest surprise among the leaders on 4.0/4.

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 4.0/4.

In the Juniors 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 5.0/5.

Results for Round 04 Open:

WGM Toma Katarzyna [2322] (3) draws (3) GM Tukhaev Adam [2516]; GM Neverov Valeriy [2478] (3) beats (3) Pranav V [2040]; CM Aditya Mittal [2068] (3) loses to (3) IM Shyaamnikhil P [2451]; Gusain Himal [2448] (3) loses to (3) Tarun V Kanth [1943]; Boricha Ketan [1963] (3) loses to (3) IM Saptarshi Roy [2418]; Siddharth Sabharishankar [1962] (3) loses to (3) IM Das Sayantan [2371]; Bernadskiy Vitaliy [2540] (2½) beats (3) Nair Sanjeev [1899]; Sandipan Chanda [2593] (2½) beats (2½) CM Erigaisi Arjun [2309]; IM Kathmale Sameer [2313] (2½) loses to (2½) GM Ghosh Diptayan [2570] (3); GM Malakhatko Vadim [2507] (2½) draws (2½) Sidhant Mohapatra [2267]