Mumbai Mayor's Chess tournament: Erigaisi Arjun, Raja Ritvik R among joint leaders

Mumbai: Two Indians, Fide Masters Erigaisi Arjun and Raja Ritvik R, along with three overseas players led the points table at the end of round 6 of the 11th Mumbai Mayor's International Chess Tournament today.

Sponsored by LIC, the tournament is being hosted by Mount Litera International School, Bandra Kurla Complex.

The other joint leaders in the tournament were top seed GM Kravtsiv Martyn (ELO 2662) of Ukraine, GM Tran Tuan Minh (ELO 2514) of Vietnam and GM Amanotov Farrukh of Tajikistan.
All five players had 4.5 points to their credit.

The most notable performance of this round came from unseeded Sammed Jaykumar Sethe (ELO 2375) of Kolhapur who drew with GM Tukhaev Adam (ELO 2557).

Tukhaev opted for a Spanish opening against Sethe. In the middle stages of the game, the Indian won a rook for bishop and was able to gain a slight advantage with the exchange of queens.

Tukhaev put his experience to good use but was forced to draw after the 46th move due to a repetition of position.

FM Ritvik (ELO 2296) drew with top seed Martyn (ELO 2662). The game started with a Catalan opening. Although Martyn had a slight edge over Ritvik in the first part of the game the latter managed to close the gap with the exchange of queens.

With only rooks left on either side, Martyn repeated the same position 3 times and agreed for a draw after 46 moves.

Results (6th round):

FM Raja Rithvik R (2296, IND) drew with GM Kravtsiv Martyn (2662, UKR) 4-4; FM Erigaisi Arjun (2505, IND) drew with GM Tran Tuan Minh (2514, VIE) 4-4; GM Sandipan Chanda (2571, IND) drew with GM Amonatov Farrukh (2605, TJK) 4-4; GM Rozum Ivan (2581, RUS) bt IM Rathnakaran K. (2385, IND) 4-4; GM Tukhaev Adam (2557, UKR) drew with Sammed Jaykumar Shete (2375, IND) 4-4; IM Sidhant Mohapatra (2370, IND) lost to GM Ghosh Diptayan (2536, IND) 4-4; GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J. (2531, IND) drew with IM Siva Mahadevan (2346, IND) 4-4; Saravana Krishnan P. (2359, IND) drew with GM Burmakin Vladimir (2528, RUS) 4-4; Neelash Saha (2333, IND) drew with FM Karthik Venkataraman (2475, IND) 4-4; IM Harsha Bharathakoti (2471, IND) drew with CM Kushagra Mohan (2308, IND) 4-4.