Sandipan Chanda is on fourth spot

Gibraltar: Giant killer Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda continued his winning streak by defeating Marcel Peek of The Netherlands in the sixth round of the Gibtele.Com Masters Chess tournament at the Caleta Hotel here.

Chanda, with 4.5 points in his kitty, is on fourth spot along with 10 other players.

Overnight leaders GM Jon Speelman of England drew with former world junior champion Kirili Georgiev of Bulgaria to remain in joint lead on five points alongwith Viktor Bologan of Moldova who defeated veteran Viktor Korchnoi to reach five points out of a possible six.

In the shocker of the tournament, top seed GM Alexei Shirov of Spain was comprehensively beaten by GM Peter Wells of England in just 13 moves.

Apart from Chanda, International Master S. Kidambi held third seed GM Nigel Short of England. With the draw, Kidambi ? who had a bad start in this event ? remained on course for his second GM norm, inching to four points out of a possible six.

Among the other Indian men in the fray, GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly recovered after a disastrous fifth round loss to score a fine victory over Jeroen Van Den Bresellaar of the Netherlands.

GMs Abhijit Kunte and Tejas Bakre drew their games while Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury tasted defeat at the hands of GM Mohamad al-Modaihki of Qatar.

Among the women, Nisha Mohota went down fighting against GM Arizmendi Martinez Of Spain while Anupama Gokhale, Swati Ghate and Bhagyashree Thipsay were also on the receiving end against Kevin Spraggett of Canada, John Shaw of Scotland and Milos Pavlovic of Russia, respectively.

However, Kruttika Nadig, Mary Ann Gomes and Nimmy George scored fine victories to add to their overnight tally.

Chanda was in his elements against Peek who played the French Defence as black. The middlegame arising out of an advance variation, suited to Chanda’s positional acumen and he slowly grinded his opponent. The Indian won in just 26 moves.

Kidambi played out a quick draw with short from a queen pawn opening. Playing white the Chennai based played it safe without giving any chance to his illustrious opponent. (PTI)