Laxman stuns GM Babujian, shares lead

Laxman stuns GM Babujian, shares lead
By RR Vasudevan

Former Commonwealth Champion Grandmaster R R Laxman of India scalped a second Grandmaster in succession as he stunned GM Babujian Levon of Armenia in the third round of the Chennai Grand Master International Open Chess tournament held in celebration of the FIDE World Championship Match 2013 at Nehru Stadium, Chennai here today.

Laxman who defeated top seed GM Popov in the previous round, scored an exciting 46 move victory over Armenian Grandmaster Babujian Levon, taking his tally to 3.0 points from as many rounds.

Sharing the lead at 3.0 points with Laxman were GMs Lalith Babu, Vishnu Prasanna (both India), Ter Sahakyan Samvel (Armenia) among others.

In another upset FIDE Master Aravindh Chithambaram defeated GM Drazic Sinisa of Serbia.

GM Babujian Levon – GM R R Laxman

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 d5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bh4 c5 8.e3 c4 9.Nd2 g5 10.Bg3 Bf5 11.Be2 O-O 12.O-O Re8 13.Be5 Bxc3 14.bxc3 Ne4 15.Nxe4 Bxe4 16.f3 Bg6 17.e4 Nc6 18.Bg3 dxe4 19.fxe4 Qa5 20.d5 Rad8 21.Bh5 Qxc3 22.Bxg6 fxg6 23.Kh1 Ne5 24.Rb1 b6 25.Qa4 Qa5 26.Qc2 Qc5 27.Qc3 Qe7 28.a4 Nd3 29.a5 Qxe4 30.axb6 axb6 31.Rxb6 Rf8 32.Rbf6 Nf4 33.Bxf4 Rxf6 34.Qxf6 Rf8 35.Qa1 gxf4 36.Re1 Qd3 37.Rd1 Qe2 38.Qb1 Kh7 39.Rf1 c3 40.d6 Rb8 41.Qa1 Rb7 42.h3 c2 43.Kh2 f3 44.Rxf3 Qd1 45.Qa6 Rg7 46.d7 c1Q 0-1

Results (Round 3) : (Indians unless specified) :

Swapnil S Dhopade (2.5) drew with Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2.5), M R Lalith Babu (3) bt Gagare Shardul (2), Udeshi Aditya (2) lost to Ter-Sahakyan Samvel (Arm) 3, Babujian Levon (2) lost to R R Laxman (3), B S Shivananda (2.5) drew with Mozharov Mikhail (Rus) 2.5, V Vishnu Prasanna (3) bt S Ravi Teja (2), Aravindh Chithambaram V R (3) bt Drazic Sinisa (Srb) 2, N R Vignesh (2.5) drew with Rzayev Bahruz (Aze) 2.5, Mirzoev Azer (Aze) 2.5 bt Ravichandran Siddharth (1.5), Papin Vasily (Rus) 2 drew with Sardana Rishi (2)