IM Deshmukh holds top seed Amonatov to draw

Nagpur, June 2

IM Anup Deshmukh of Nagpur played another superb game to hold top seed Farrukh Amonatov to a draw and is trailing half a point behind the leader with 10 others in after the completion of the fourth round of the 1st Maharashtra International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament which progressed at the Shri Shiv Chhatrapati stadium at Balewadi in Pune.

Today in the 4th round Anup opened the English way against top seed Amonatov and the game became exciting after the players castled on opposite flanks. Anup opted for castling on queen-side and was surprised when on the the 23rd turn Amonatov sacrificed his rook to clear the way for his pawn to advance all the way to the last rank. Anup was forced to give up his rook for one of the queens. A few exchanges later the players exchanged a rook and minor piece ending with an extra pawn for Amonatov. Anup however played comfortably in the ending and peace was signed on the 45th turn in a dead equal position.

Late night yesterday, the mercurial Anup Deshmukh was at his scintillating best as he shocked GM Azer Mirzoev to win the Brilliancy prize for Round 3. Top seed Amonatov, the only player rated above 2600 in this tournament had to concede a draw to Aditya Samant yesterday after 100 fought moves.

Georgian Grandmaster Luka Paichadze rated second shot into sole lead with 4 points in as many games In the fourth round he defeated GM M R Venkatesh while the all GM encounters between overnight leaders Boris Savchenko versus Arjun Kalyan and V Karthik versus Aleksej Alexandrov ended in deadlocks.