Gopal beats Speelman, joint third now in Gibraltar Chess

Gibraltar: Grandmaster G N Gopal put it across Jon Speelman of England and jumped to the joint third

spot after the end of the ninth and penultimate round of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess festival here. The victory, coming with black pieces put Gopal in a good position in the 1,26,000 prize money event as the Indian will take on Salome Melia of Georgia in the final round with white pieces. Meanwhile, it continued to be a two-way race for the title as top seeded Grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk showcased his superior understanding to beat young GM Fabianoa Caruana of Italy to remain at the helm with a remarkable eight points out of a possible nine. Ivanchuk continued to enjoy a half point lead over Nigel Short of England who also won a fine game against Victor Mikhalevsky of Israel. It`s a 10-way tie for the third spot on 6.5 points and besides Gopal, Harikrishna is the other Indian in contention for a podium finish. In the ninth round game, Harikrishna was held to a draw by Melia. Among other Indians in the fray, top-rated Indian Krishnan Sasikiran played out a draw with Daniel Fridman of Germany while Deep Sengupta achieved the same result against Vyacheslav Ikonikov of Russia. The lone Indian GM to face a defeat was Sandipan Chanda who went down to Spanish Alexis Cabrera and D Harika did well to hold GM Girogi Kacheishvili of Georgia to a draw. Attaining good results towards the end of the tournament were Arghyadip Das who outwitted Ruben Felgaer of Argentina, Vaibhav Suri who won as black against Garcia Jimenez Francisco Javie of Spain and Eesha Karavade, who proved too good against Thomas Becker of Germany. Sasikiran, Sengupta, Das and Harika are tied for the 13th spot on having six points apiece. Gopal was in his elements against Speelman in an irregular queen pawn game. Playing white, Speelman fought hard for an opening advantage but Gopal was well on his guard and when the English went for a positional exchange sacrifice it all turned out to be a wild game. Gopal methodically placed his pieces on the correct squares and wise declined a second exchange sacrifice by Speelman before reaching a winning endgame. Speelman resigned after 53 moves. Harikrishna could not break the ice against solid play by Melia who played white. The Indian reached a rook and pawns endgame with some chances for a victory but Melia played good defensive moves to restore parity. There was a second power cut in the tournament that lasted for around 45 minutes. The venue for the remaining games by then had shifted to the commentary rooms. PTI