Sahaj Grover beats Irina Zakurdjaeva

New Delhi, Jan 15 (UNI) International Master(IM) norm holder Sahaj Grover staked his claim for his second IM norm by defeating Woman Grandmaster(WGM) Irina Zakurdjaeva of Russia in the fourth round of the sixth Parsvnath International Chess tournament here today.

Sahaj, who had drawn the third round with higher rated IM Akshayraj Kore, displayed exemplary form in cruising past the Russian WGM who could not withstand the continued assault from the upcoming local player.

With this win, Sahaj took his tally to 3.5 points out of a possible four in this strongest open of the country and is now a strong contender for his second IM norm.

Meanwhile, at the top of the table, Georgian turned Spaniard GM Elizbar Ubilava continued to make merry at the expense of Taibur Rahman of Bangladesh and remained in joint lead along with 11 others with a perfect 4/4 score.

Top seed GM Ehsan Ghames Maghmi of Iran had an easy outing against GM norm holder M S Thej Kumar who played black.

The shocker of the day was Arjun Tiwari's victory over seasoned IM S Kidambi who remained on three points after the debacle.

Four times National Champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly came back into reckoning when talented N Srinath could not play the best available moves in a complicated endgame. Srinath had earlier sacrificed a piece against Ganguly and when the dust subsided he apparently had a draw that went awry with his wrong plan.

In a notable result, triple GM norm holder G B Prakash defeated Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine.

Asian Women's champion Tania Sachdev too made scored a comeback victory over Deeragh Raj Joshi. Tania took her tally to a respectable three points with this win.

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