Chanda, Ganguly maintain joint lead

Gibraltar:

Grandmasters Sandipan Chanda and Surya Shekhar Ganguly continued with their fine run and remained in joint lead on 3.5 points each after the conclusion of the fourth round of Gibtelecom Masters International Open chess tournament today. As many as 12 players remained half a point adrift of the two leaders, with 3 points each in their kitty. They were Russians Ernesto Inarkiev, Alexey Kuzmin and Alexei Dreev, Englishmen Nigel Short, Murray Chandler and Jonathan Speelman, Indian Grandmasters British Champion Abhijit Kunte, P Harikrishna and Dibyendu Barua, Joeseph Gallagher of Switzerland, Paul Motwani of Scotland and Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova. It turned out to be another good day for the Indians as yet again none of the men lost. Sandipan Chanda crashed through the defences of Grandmaster Mark Hebden of England with his white pieces while Surya Shekhar Ganguly proved a class above FIDE master Christian Seel of Germany, who played white. Former Commonwealth Champion Dibyendu Barua used his white pieces to maximum effect and defeated Scot GM Colin cnab, GM P Harikrishna recorded his third victory on the trot, accounting for International Master Mathias Womacka of Germany and GM Abhijit Kunte ended the dream run of compatriot Women International Master Swati Ghate with a finely crafted victory. Swati, however, still has excellent chances for her final WGM norm as her average rating in the past two rounds had shot up quite a bit. (PTI)