CALCUTTA, FEB 13: Indian prodigy Neelotpal Das secured his maiden International Master Norm with one round to spare by playing out a hard fought draw against WGM A Stefanova of Bulgaria in the eighth round of the 9th Goodricke International Open chess tournament being played here at the Gorky Sadan.Nothing startling happened at the top and overnight joint leaders Grandmasters A Nenashev (Uzbekistan), Yurtaev Leonid (Kirgistan) and Jaan Ehlvest (Estonia) continued to share lead on six points each by drawing their respective games.
Neelotpal, in order to retain his GM norm chances, went for a direct attack against opponent's King by sacrificing two pawns in an irregular set up opted for by Stefanaova.
Neelotpal obtained a clear advantage with excellent piece play but messed up in time pressure to let Stefanaova off the hook.
On the top board Nenachev opened with the queen pawn and employed the sharp Samisch variation against Yurtaev's Kings Indian Defence. The players played rontine moves beforesetting for the draw.
Top seed GM Nigel Short (5.5) too decided to play and agreed to a quich draw. Asif taking a cue from short's game, GMS J Speelman of England and GM Das Thein Hai of Vietnam followed suit both Speelman and Thein Haiare on 5.5 points.
GM A Berelovich (Ukraine) played 16 moves before agreeing to a draw with a Lastin of Russia. GM Dibyendu Barua found a fantastic pawn sacrifice to wriggle out of an apprently inferior position against National champion IM Abhijeet Kuntelondon system to finally draw the game. Barua and Kunte moved to 5.0 points each to their credit.
GM Phillpp Schlossar of Germany (5.5 pts) put IM norm aspirant C Sgokhale's Tarassch Defence to acid test by playing a rare variation. Gokhale could only manage a passive position out of the opening and went down through some enterprising play by the Grandmaster.
IM norm aspirant DK Sharma (4.5) improved his prospects by defeating Phillipino IM Ronald Bancod in a Sicilian Alapin. Ronald missed a tactical stroke in themiddlegame to bow down.
IWM S Vijaya Laxmi's final WGM norm became a bit difficult as he went down to Surya Sekhor Ganguly in an English opening with white pieces.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
