Sandipan Chanda

Calcutta: City-based Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda broke away from the pack to emerge as the sole leader with 4 points in as many rounds in the Kolkata Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament here on Friday.

Four Grandmasters — Nigel Short, Enamul Hossain, Eltaj Safarli and Le Quang Liem — are close on his heels on 3.5 points apiece.

Sandipan, who is known for his sharp and imaginative play, won a pawn in the middle game by a neat tactical stroke against GM P. Magesh Chandran. He gave back the pawn to activate his queen and rook and further weaken his opponent’s kingside. Facing inevitable mate Magesh Chandran resigned on the 36th move.

Second seed, and former world title contender Nigel Short of England was held to a draw by perpetual check, following a knight sacrifice by the 17 th rank GM Eltaj Safarli of Azerbaijan in the Breyer variation of the Ruy Lopez.

GM Enamul Hossain of Bangladesh put up stubborn defence in a slightly inferior position against GM Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan to draw in 48 moves.

Vadim Malakhatko of Belgium and Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus got around the ‘no draw up to 20 moves’ rule imposed by the organisers by agreeing to a draw on the 21 st move.

GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly, too, agreed to a draw against Jan Marcos of Slovakia in 21 moves.

“ I didn’t get any advantage from the opening in a Sicilian Sevesnikov. I thought for 24 and 27 minutes for the last two moves, but still did not come up with any concrete advantage.

So I decided to save my energy and opted for a draw.” Surya explained after the game.