Mumbai, June 16 (IANS) IM Soham Kamotra caused a flutter at the Global Chess Festival, displaying a strong defence to halt Iniyan Pa’s winning streak in the sixth round of the Master’s section at the World Trade Centre.

Iniyan had been in blistering form, winning all his first five games, and looked set to score his sixth successive victory in the early stages of his game, but lost his way and had to settle for a draw against Kamotra, who incidentally is the first and only International Master (IM) from Jammu and Kashmir.

Iniyan, with 5.5 points, however, holds onto a slender half-point lead over second-placed Aakashchandra Dalvi, while Kamotra, Ayush Sharma, and Harsh Suresh are bunched behind with 4.5 points each. In other results, GM Abhijit Gupta broke the three-game winning streak of prodigy WIM Oshini Gunawardhana Devindya.

Ajay Santhosh Parvathareddy squandered a winning position to end on the losing side against Aakash Sharadchandra Dalvi in another important result. IM Akshay Borgaonkar held a higher-rated GM Alexander Aleksej to a draw. IM Mohan Kushagra was shocked by compatriot FM Adak Bivor.

Viresh Sharnarthi and Madhvendra Pratap Sharma scored their sixth consecutive victories to lead the Challenger and Junior Categories, respectively, with six points each. Nithin Babu, Arul Anand, and Swain Aashirwad are trailing Sharnarthi by just half a point. Madhvendra has built a one-point lead over Ankit Das, Vinayak Kolluru, A Amanlal, Nijesh R, and Amber Gangwal.

Kamotra was caught off guard in an English Opening game against Iniyan, and Iniyan’s pieces were comfortably placed. Incidentally, both players failed to make accurate moves. Kamotra, however, got his act together, exchanged pieces, and defended tenaciously to earn a precious half point.

Abhijit Gupta adopted the Sicilian defence against Oshina, and the latter made her intentions obvious to try and force a draw right from the early stages. Exchanging pieces at every possible opportunity, Oshina was quick to steer the game into the ending phase where each had double rooks, a minor piece, and an identical number of pawns by the 14th turn. A dubious pawn advance after castling on the queen-side landed Oshini in trouble, and the seasoned GM ensured that there were no hiccups before pocketing the point on the 41st turn.

Nagarkatte Vedant also managed an advantage in the Opening stages against Viresh Sharnarthi till a wrong queen move on the 17th turn. Sharnarthi did hold an edge after the exchange of queens, but by the 55th turn, a rook and two pawns each ending indicated that the game might end in a draw. Nagarkatte mishandled the ending and lost out after 76 moves.

The game between Madhvendra and Heet Baldawa in a Sicilian defence was a rather one-sided affair, which Madhvendra clinched after 63 moves.

Results:

Soham, Kamotra (1/2) draw Iniyan, Pa (1/2)

Ajay, Santhosh Parvathareddy (0) lost to Aakash Sharadchandra, Dalvi (1)

Gorovets, Andrey (1/2) draw Nitish, Belurkar (1/2)

Fedorov, Alexei (1/2) draw Savchenko, Boris (1/2)

Ayush, Sharma (1) beat Slizhevsky, Alexander (0)

Gochelashvili, David (0) lost to Harsh, Suresh (1)

–IANS

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