Mumbai Mayors Tropy International Grandmaster Open

Mumbai Mayors Tropy International Grandmaster Open

By Praful Zaveril

Re: No Change in Leaders

With the championship drawing to close, the strategy for the leaders is to find out the right encounter to fight and agree for a draw with players of equal strength so that they retain their chances of winning till the end. This strategy was witnessed in abundance today in the 8^th round of LIC Mumbai Mayor’s International Chess Tournament in progress here at the Goregaon Sports Club.

With just 3 rounds remaining, the two overnight leaders, GM R.R. Laxman&GM Kravstiv Martyn decided to draw their encounterin just 14-moves from the Catalan opening and wait for the right opponent in the next two rounds.

And, a fighting draw was seen on board two in the game between GM Alexander Zubov& the overnight leader IM Priyadarshan, who is rated 150 points below the GM on the ELO scale. GM Zubov, who was trailing Priyadarshan by half-a-point used all his experience to win the game against Priyadarshan, However, Priyadarshan was equal to the task and his accurate defense in the queen and minor piece ending with equal pawns saved the day for him. The players signed peace treaty after 67 moves.

Both these results meant that the lead remained unchanged in hands of Kravstiv, Laxman and Priyadarshan.

Similar results were also witnessed on board 3 and 4 in the encounters between GM Kokarev vs GM Luka Paichadze&GM Pavel Smirnov vs HarshaBharathakoti where the ‘safety first’ approach was witnessed.

A shock result was witnessed in the game between GM AleksandrovAleksej and IM SwapnilDhopade wherein the GM overestimated his chances and made a crucial mistake to hand over the full point to the Swapnil. The trend of GM losing to an IM continued as GM Ziaur Rahman lost to IM Nitin

The 2^nd spot is jointly occupied by 9-players;Zubov Alexander, Kokarev Dmitry, Pavel Smirnov, Luka Paichadze, MchedlishviliMikheil,Nguyen Duc,SwapnilDhopade, S Nitin, HarshaBharathakoti. All these players are on 6points.

Two more rounds remains to be played in this championship to decide the champion of 2015 edition of Mayor’s Cup.

Key Results of Round 8: