ROHITH Krishna shot into sole lead with 7.5 points after completion of the 9th round of the 2nd Maharashtra International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament being played at Naivedhyam Northstar in Koradi. Krishna defeated overnight joint leader FM Vedant Panesar while IM Szpar Milosz, the overnight third joint leader, was held to a draw by Neelash Shah. Milosz, Mayank Chakraborty follow behind the leaders with 7 points each. Thirteen-year-old CM Mayank Chakraborty of Assam became the first player of this tournament to earn a maiden 9 game GM norm after defeating GM Alexei Federov in a keenly contested game.

 

“I am not even an International Master (IM) and I have overshot to gain a GM norm. I have been travelling a lot and have played about 65 to 70 tournaments,” said the visibly excited teenager. Incidentally Mayank garners both an IM and GM norm for this effort. In other relevant results, GM Deep Sengupta lost to GM RR Laxman. IM Sammed Jaykumar Shete, who had a good run crashed to his second consecutive defeat, losing to FM Ayush Sharma. IM Rahul VS Shrugged off Tuesday’s loss to beat his Tamil Nadu state-mate IM Srihari. In a King’s Indian attack game Vedant Panesar, playing with the Black pieces, surprisingly sacrificed a rook for Rohith Krishna’s bishop and knight, without any provocation. Thereafter he initiated the exchange of queens.

 

Thereafter banking heavily on a passed pawn on the queen-side Vedant tried to nurse and promote the pawn by rallying his rooks and knights around it. Rohith had no difficulty in defending and grabbing the passed pawn to clinch victory after 45 moves. In a Reti game, things appeared to going on an equal footing between Mayank and Federov until the Belarussian lost a pawn on the 26th turn. Federov further lost another pawn in a tactical stroke on the 31st turn and entered a hopelessly lost ending where each had a knight and pawns. Mayank had no problems in pushing his passed pawn and pocketing the point after 43 moves. The Four Knights game between Szpar and Neelash Shah had the former launching an attack on the King-side but could not gain any conclusive advantage and peace was signed after 31 moves.