Candidate Master (CM) Taffin Khan last evening played masterful chess to stop Davion Mars and assume sole lead of the Guyana Chess Federation’s GAICO-sponsored Swiss System tournament at the National Resource Centre Woolford Avenue.
And, in the battle of two veteran players, former Guyana Chess Federation president Errol Tiwari, defeated arch rival Rai Sharma in a bruising encounter.
While the main clash was a tactical battle which was won in the middle game by Khan, The Tiwari/Sharma match was a long, drawn-out affair that went into the end game before Sharma finally and reluctantly resigned.
Tiwari, was content to ground his opponent relentlessly and passed up several clear cut winning opportunities in his attempt to play safe and gradually weaken his opponent’s position.
At the start of yesterday’s fourth round, Mars and Khan were the only unbeaten players and, as expected, were made to fight it out as per Swiss System rules.
While Mars had the white pieces he failed to make much advantage of it and Khan, playing the Old Indian Defence to Mars’s version of the English Opening, soon sacked a Knight which he was to win back with interest as he opened a relentless attack on Mars’ King.
To compound matters Mars was unable to castle and, facing the possibility of a discovered check, moved his King to safety allowing Khan to win back the Knight and to go on to win another piece.
Faced with a Queen and Rook attack on his virtually defenceless King, Mars resigned.
In other results Saeed Ali defeated Adrian Roopnarine to move to two points while Roopnarine remained on one point.
Candidate Master Ronuel Greenidge found a bit of opposition from Steve Leung but in the end prevailed with mate threatening.
The other games were still in progress as of press time.
