Filipino grandmaster Oliver Babrbosa and Maharashtra's Vidit Gujrathi shot themselves into joint lead in the penultimate round of the 6th Kolkata Open Chess tournament here today.
While Oliver outwitted Landa Konstantin of Russia, Vidit playing black got the better of SP Sethuraman in a marathon battle of 98 moves to log seven points apiece, while four others are on 6.5 each.
Oliver and Landa preferred to play the Tarrasch game, in which Landa went for a queen exchange as early as on 7th move.
Oliver did not allow Landa to castle and his outside passer pawn on the a- file helped to get the verdict in his favour.
Both former age category world champions, Sethraman of PSPB and Vidit of Maharashtra fought fiercely in a Caro Kann defence, adopted by the latter.
Vidit gained a valuable pawn on the 42nd move after several exchanges.
In an equal ending, Vidit demonstrated that knight is a better piece than bishop, when all the pawns are on the same side.
With a win in the longest game of the tournament extending to 98 moves, Vidit surged ahead to the top.
Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia playing the Reti opening against former Asian Junior champion Deepan Chakkaravarthy of Tamil Nadu overlooked a simple move, resulting in the loss of exchange on 26th move.
When both had pinned minor pieces with their queens behind, Deepan released his pinned knight with a tactical rook move as Levan resigned, when he was about to lose his rook.
