Indian GM Deep Sengupta beats Ruben Felgaer, in joint 3rd spot

Gibraltar, Jan 30 (PTI) After a slip up against NigelShort of England, Indian Grandmaster Deep Sengupta was back tohis winning ways, as he made short work of Ruben Felgaer ofArgentina to be in joint third spot, after the end of thefifth round of Tradewise Gibraltar chess tournament, here.

Sengupta, who started off with three wins, came back tohaunt the higher ranked players with his quick-win which was adisaster for Felgaer.

The higher ranked Indians could not improve theirstandings in the fifth round. Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikirandrew with Rainer Buhmann of Germany while former world juniorchampion P Harikrishna was held to a draw by Argentinean PabloLafuente.

With five rounds still to come in one of the strongestopen of the world, Sengupta and GM GN Gopal share the fourthspot on 4 points while Sasikiran and Harikrishna are in thenext score-group of 3.5 pointers.

GM Sandipan Chanda tried hard but could not force mattersagainst veteran Swiss GM Viktor Korchnoi and GM Gopal was theonly one amongst 2600s Indian GM who could move up the ladderdefeating Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania.

The other Indians in the fray had a rocking time in thetournament as only Eesha Karavade dropped a half point againstPhilip Wheldon of England. The remaining Indians D Harika,Arghyadip Das and Vaibhav Suri scored easy wins against lowerranked opponents.

Sengupta was aided by ''luck'' in his game against Felgaeras the latter forgot a basic ''back-rank-mate'' concept. Playinghis pet French defence, Deep secured a decent position in themiddle game arising out of a Winawer variation when disasterstruck Felgaer as he dropped a piece for nothing.

The Argentine resigned immediately; it was over in just17 moves.

For Gopal, it was a hard-earned victory against Cmilytefrom a Queen pawn game. The Indian got a level position inmiddle game and it was only after a strategic decision toexchange queens that he managed an advantage. Winning a coupleof weakened white pawns Gopal gradually increased hisadvantage and romped home in 61 moves.

Meanwhile, Nigel Short emerged as the sole leader in the126,000 Pounds Sterling tournament defeating NadezhdaKosintseva of Russia in his fifth round game. Short now has 5points from as many games and the nearest rivals for theEnglishman are top seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and DanielFridman of Germany who both are half a point behind. MORE PTIKHS