Sandipan draws with Kobalija

International Master Sandipan Chanda held Grandmaster Kobalija to a draw to maintain his lead at the end of the third round of the Ubeda International Open chess tournament in Ubeda, Spain.

Chandrashekhar Gokhale won his first board of the tournament, while K Visveswaran scored his second successive victory.

Other Indians including Sriram Jha, Rahul Shetty and Aarthie Ramaswamy succumbed to their rivals' tactics.

In an all-India show, IM R B Ramesh lost to Dinesh Kumar Sharma.

Playing white, Chanda faced the Sicilian Taimanov variation and the players soon reached a Rook and Pawn endgame with equal pawns and neither of them having any real chances for a win. A draw was agreed to in 35 moves.

The other player losing from white side was Ramesh, who let Sharma off the hook after employing the Ruy-Lopez variation.

After getting a huge advantage from the opening, Ramesh mistakenly touched his rook and lost an exchange. Thereafter, he missed a chance to equalise and further lost a rook and a piece and subsequently the game in 32 moves.

Visweswaran came back strongly after his first round loss with an upset win over IM Alexei Holm Stein of Finland from the black side of a Closed Sicilian variation.

Visweswaran played aggressively and soon won a pawn as reward. He then converted his material advantage into a clear win in 44 moves with a spectacular rook sacrifice.

Sriram Jha failed to sustain his momentum he had gathered in the previous two rounds and lost to GM Minasian of Armenia.

Minasian employed the Moscow variation as White and soon gained the upper hand after Jha wasted some moves on the Queenside. Minasian won 2 minor pieces for his Rook with a neat combination when Jha decided to give up on the 24th move.

Gokhale had an easy time against partially-blind Rubio Mancebon. Rubio blundered a piece early in the opening of Dutch variation and Gokhale netted the point in 38 moves.

IWM Aarthie Ramaswamy failed to play the opening to her advantage from the Black side of the Kings Indian Bayonet attack and soon gave a big positional advantage to IM Estremera Panos of Spain.

She lost a pawn as a result and had to give up on the 38th move when his opponent threatened to enter a winning King and Pawn ending.

IM (elect) Rahul Shetty lost to IM Froehlick from the Black side of an irregular opening. Froelich sacrificed a pawn early for an attack on Shetty's King. After the Queens were exchanged Shetty got his Rook trapped on the Kingside and lost his pawns on the Queenside and resigned on the 44th move.

Important results: Sandipan Chanda (2.5) drew GM M Kobalija (2.5); GM A Minasian (2) beat Sriram Jha (1.5); IM R B Ramesh (1) lost to D K Sharma (2); IM Alexie Homlsten (1) lost to K Visweswaran (2); C S Gokhale (1.5) beat Rubio Mancebon (0.5); IM P Froelich (2) beat Rahul Shetty (1); IM Estremera Panos (1.5) beat R Aarthie (0.5).