THE fourth and final Classical games of the Maharashtra Challenge Match — Peter Svidler versus Vidit Gujrathi and Raunak Sadhwani versus Nigel Short were intense and hard-fought but ended in draws. Both Vidit and Raunak have tallied 7.5 points apiece while Svidler and Short trail behind with 4.5 points each. A victory fetches 3 points while 1.5 points are awarded for a draw in the Classical games. On Monday two Rapid games and 4 Blitz games will be played and on Tuesday (on the final day) once again two Rapid and four Blitz games will be played. Wins in Rapid will earn 2 points and 1 point will be awarded for a draw. In Blitz, a victory will fetch 1 point while a draw will garner 0.5 point. Raunak’s not so subtle shift in strategy by opening with the Queen pawn and denying Short another opportunity to play the French defence resulted in just the tiniest of pause and hesitation by Nigel before he replied with a knight move, the game going the Catalan way.

Raunak’s queen was tempted with a pawn offer on the queen-side on the 13th move and thereafter he had to make four more moves with his queen before retreating back to original square. However, a spate of exchanges followed and the resultant rook plus two minor piece each ending fizzled into a draw after 39 moves. Raunak was upset after the game, ruing missed opportunities and commented, “Not happy with the game but cannot complain about the result. I probably missed a winning continuation. I want to shrug off this and look forward to the Rapid and Blitz games.”

Svidler after scoring a victory with the English Opening in the second game repeated the same Opening and Vidit did not appear very comfortable with the way the game began. He however found his way back in the middle-game where most activity focused in the centre. Vidit in a promising position made an inaccurate rook move and suddenly Svidler had a passed pawn marching merrily till the 6th and 7th rank. Vidit had to sacrifice his knight for the pawn on the 23rd turn and grabbed a couple of pawns more.

Another pawn grab by Vidit’s queen allowed Svidler to gain a dangerous initiative with his queen, rook and bishop targeting his opponents’ King with some checkmating threats. Vidit found a good resource where he sacrificed a rook and forced the exchange of queens leaving Svidler no option but to give perpetual checks and draw the game after 37 moves.

2ND MAHARASHTRA INTERNATIONAL OPEN GRANDMASTER CHESS TOURNAMENT

GM Luka Paichadze, FM Vedant Panesar, IM VS Rahul, IM Sammed Jaykumar Shete, IM Szpar Milosz, GM Babujian have emerged joint leaders with 5 points each after completion of sixth round of the 2nd Maharashtra International Open Grandmaster Chess tournament.