Iniyan Pa Takes Sole Lead At Mumbai Chess Festival; 15-Year-Old Shahan Vohra Stuns 3rd Seed

Reigning National Champion, GM Iniyan Pa of TN shot into sole lead with a convincing win over GM Alexei Fedorov of Belarus in the third round of the Masters Category of the 360 ONE Global Chess Festival, being played at the World Trade Centre in Mumbai. Iniyan has logged 3 points and trailing half a point behind him are seven players. Though there was no major upsets in the third round, overseas GMs continued to drop half points.

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However, it was 15-year-old Shahan Vohra who created the biggest upset of the day, defeating 3rd seed Arun Kataria after the latter blundered in the Challengers section.

In another note-worthy, result FM Jval Saurin Patel defeated higher rated IM Kushagra Mohan while former World junior Champion, Abhijeet Gupta, after a disastrous first round, covered some lost ground with two back to back victories. IM Nubairshah Shaikh held higher rated GM Sankalp Gupta to a draw.

One of the promising talents on the Indian horizon,13-year-old Madhvendra Pratap Sharma had another good day, notching victories in both the Junior and Challenger Categories to jointly lead with 3 points in both sections. Another child prodigy, 14-year-old WIM Oshini Gunawardhana Devindya of Sri Lanka, who has been making waves in World Age Categories, opened her account with a victory over IM Sergio Duran Vega.

Iniyan wielding Whites against Federov was in the driver’s seat throughout in a King’s Indian Defence game. Getting a good grip on the position, Iniyan traded off the queens as early as on the 14th move. A dubious pawn capture by Federov on the 18th resulted in the Indian netting a rook for a knight. Thereafter Federov tried to defend this disadvantageous position for a long time, ultimately losing on the 53th turn.

Overnight joint leader Audi Ameya did appear to have some promising moments against the Sicilian Defence of IM Alexander Slizhevsky. The players had castled on opposite flank and it was Ameya who forced a draw by perpetual checks after getting his opponent’s queen for 2 rooks.

Madhvendra is jointly sharing the lead with 12 other players in this Category which started with a whopping 265 players.

Shahan Vohra started the English way against Kataria and soon missed way to be in an uncomfortable position. Kataria in his eagerness to grab a pawn blundered on the 28th turn and the position tilted completely in Shahan’s favour. Kataria continued to fight, desperately trying to gain counter play but finally lost after a marathon 83 moves.

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Madhvendra adopting the Sicilian Defence against Jaiveer Patil picked up pawns at will and settled the game in his favour with his Queen and rook hunting down his opponent’s King in 34 moves.

Madhvendra along with 7 other players are jointly leading this section with six more games to be played in this 9 round Swiss League event.

Results

Iniyan, Pa (1) beat Fedorov, Alexei (0)

Audi, Ameya (1/2) draw Slizhevsky, Alexander (1/2)

Savchenko, Boris (1) beat Sammed Jaykumar, Shete (0)

Panesar, Vedant (1/2) draw Borgaonkar, Akshay (1/2)

Kaustuv, Kundu (0) lost to Ayush, Sharma

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