Gujrathi, Sadhwani bounce back

The Symmetrical English encounter between Vidit Gujrathi and Peter Svidler had the players treading very cautiously in the opening stage with the Indian appearing slightly better out of the opening. Vidit thought too long on the 12th move, an indication that he may have gone out of his Opening preparation but the exchange of queens followed on the 16th turn and Vidit appeared better.

Play for most part focussed on the queen-side where there were a spate of exchanges at regular intervals. Raunak Sadhwani for the second time in this event opted for the Siclian defence against Nigel Short’s King pawn Opening. The game was a closed Sicilan with Raunak emerging better from the Opening. A positional rook sacrifice for a bishop on the 18th turn by Raunak broke open Short’s castle and Raunak played a patient game thereafter, slowly getting his pieces to better squares to build up an attack.

Short’s defence crumbled and soon Raunak’s queen, knight and bishop were targeting the King even as his central passed pawn threatened to march towards the queening square. Short resigned on the 41st move when threatened with checkmate.

Six share lead after fourth round

The four overnight joint leaders GM Luka Paichadze, IM Raahul V S, FM Harshad S and Sammed Jaykumar Shete playing on the top two boards were involved in draws. Top seed Boris Savchenko defeated FM Goutam Krishna to catch up with the overnight leaders and with 3.5 points is jointly leading with Luka, Raahul, Harshad, Sammed, Vedant Pannesar and Kushagra Mohan. The game between FM Sharon Rao and GM Aleksandrov was in progress at the time of going to press and the winner will join the other leaders.