Iniyan Pa continued his splendid form, scoring his fifth win on the trot in the 5th round of the Masters’ Section of the 360 ONE Global Chess Festival, being played at the World Trade Centre. The Erode based Indian GM and National Champion has easily been the pick of the players, displaying amazing mental strength to match his form on the board.IM Sammed Jaykumar Shete caused the upset of the day, defeating third seed GM Abhijeet Gupta who has not been in the best of form here. Second seed Sankalp Gupta too has been struggling and ended up losing against IM Srihari.After defeating Ayush Sharma, Iniyan leads by a full point over the next placed Akash Sharadchandra Dalvi and Soham Kamotra. 11 players are bunched below them with 3.5 points each. Iniyan is pitted against Kamotra in the sixth round.Viresh Sharnarthi and Vedant Nagarkatte are jointly leading the Challengers section with 5 points apieces while Madhvendra Pratap Sharma has shot into sole lead with 5 points in the Junior Masters Category. Interestingly, the top table duel had the Sharnarthi brothers Viresh and Shlok pitted against each other where the higher rated Viresh triumphed.Teen prodigy and the ever-smiling Oshini Gunawardhana Devindya of Sri Lanka shocked seventh seed GM Mihail Niketenko of Belarus . After losses in the first two rounds, Oshini has roared back with victories over two IMs and a GM.Among other notable results Aakash Sharadchandra Dalvi defeated Akshay Borgaonkar while the second board encounter between IMs Nitish Belurkar and Soham Kamotra ended in a draw.Ayush opted for the Nimzo Indian Opening against Iniyan and was faced with difficulties from the opening stages where Iniyan had a choice to grab a rook for his bishop. After the positional advantage in the Opening, Iniyan played a cool game, increasing his advantage at every opportunity and simplifying the position by exchanging pieces. Faced further with the loss of a knight, Ayush resigned on the 53rd move.The Queen’s Gambit game between Dalvi and Borgaonkar was a volatile one where the players castled on opposite sides to create attacking possibilities for both in an open position. White did enjoy a positional edge throughout this game but the decision by Borgaonkar to bring his King into the thick of the battle in the centre after the exchange of queens backfired. He ended up losing a rook for a bishop and then the game on the 37th turn.Nikitenko and Oshini fought the Spanish way where a couple of inaccurate moves by Nikitenko put Oshini firmly in the driver’s seat. Oshini’s queen, bishop and rook made inroads into enemy territory even as Niketenko banked on his queen and two connected central pawns. Oshini forced the exchange of queens and won a rook for her bishop and the game after 37 moves.16-year-old Viresh Sharnarthi was pushed on the backfoot by Shlok in the middle-game stages of an Irregular Opening game. Gradually however he lost way after the 25th turn, after the exchange of queen. Viresh then went on to win pawns at will to pocket the point after 54 moves.Vedant Nagarkatte defeated Abhishek TM in 41 moves of a Sicilian Defence game.Ankit started the English way with the White pieces against Madhavendra. The players castled on opposite sides but the queen flank was already blockaded with pawns. A spate of exchanges initiated by White on the 22nd turn resulted in a pawn loss for Ankit. Thereafter Madhavendra forced the exchange of the other pieces to reach a queen and pawn ending to win after 51 moves.KEY RESULTSGM Iniyan, Pa (1) beat Ayush, Sharma (0)Gupta, Abhijeet (0) lost to Sammed Jaykumar, Shete (1)Nitish, Belurkar (1/2) draw Soham, Kamotra (1/2)Apoorv, Kamble (1/2) draw Slizhevsky, Alexander (1/2)Aakash Sharadchandra, Dalvi beat (1) Borgaonkar, Akshay (0).
