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Grand Master aspirant Neelotpal Das of ONGC, Kolkata missed wresting the sole lead when he agreed to a fourth round draw offer from China's Ni Hua after reaching a better position in the Asian Championship being played at the Yousufguda Stadium in Hyderabad on Oct 9.
Floated down in the pairing, Neelotpal played with the white pieces against Ni Hua and obtained a space advantage. Black tried to create room on the king side but the Indian 1982-born player obtained a clear passed pawn. Just when he looked good, the Chinese player lured him with a draw offer. Neelotpal agreed that he was better after the game.
The top board saw a bloodless seven move draw with Dao Thien Hai not utilising his advantage of making the first move against Zhang Zhong. Drawn results at the top allowed four more players to join the leaders platform on 3.5 points from four rounds. Three Chinese players, Wang Hao, Zhou Jianchao and Li Shilong and Indonesia's Megaranto Susanto joined the overnight leaders with impressive victories.
In the third board, Wang Hao overcame his more famous Chinese opponent, Xu Jun in 39 moves. The latter sacrificed his bishop and let the white king escape. Black who played the Sicilian dragon missed a strong attack on the 21st move.
Untitled Chinese, Zhou Jianchao scored in the best game of the round against Bangladesh's highest rated player GM Ziaur Rahman in 45 moves. First he sacrificed a knight to shred the black's king off its shelter and then a rook for the final punch.
Indian grandmasters continued to face big resistance. Sasikiran (2.5/4) had to fight hard to earn a 63-move draw from Annageldyev of Turkmenistan. GM norm aspirant Sundararajan Kidambi (2.5/4) played a draw against higher rated Vietnamese grandmaster Nguyen Anh Dung with the black pieces.
After an opening round defeat, Humpy has made considerable ground posting her third successive victory. She accounted for Karen Grigoryan of Turkmenistan in 44 moves with the white pieces after making use of a poor 39th move pawn capture which offered her a vent to attack.
Two visiting grandmasters gave their opinion of the event. While Ehsan Ghaem Maghami from Teheran, Iran said the organisation in Hyderabad is improving by the day, the handsome Uzbek from Samarkant said, "no good". They played a quick 18-move draw and reason was having forgotten opening theory!
For complete results please visit
http://www.asianchess2005.com/hyd/r4.htm
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