Playing in Guyana’s 4th Grand Prix chess tournament, Ethan Lee and Ronuel Greenidge’s game ended in a draw, in 67 moves.
Greenidge, playing black, employed the tricky Nimzo-Indian Defence. On move 16. …Nexc4 black snatched a pawn while white concentrated on breaking up black’s kingside pawns. Black faced off white’s queen with 22. …Qh7 but white would have none of it. White intervened with a bishop driving the queen away to the queenside. On his 25th move, perhaps white could have tried something else. In the endgame white fought with a rook against a knight and a passed a-pawn. A draw was agreed to on the 67th move.
At the time of writing this, Loris Nathoo and Sachin Pitamber were still to play. Nathoo forfeited his game with Kishan Puran, but was unbeaten thus far.
Pitamber and Puran played a Sicilian defence game, which Pitamber won. He played a brilliant eleventh move 11. Qd6! cramping the queen pawn. He then pinned a knight with a bishop that the queen was protecting. In the combination which followed, Puran left a bishop en prise after losing a rook and pawn for a bishop. He resigned.
In his game with Alexander Zhang, white, Nathoo played the Caro-Kann defence. Zhang dropped a knight on his 16th move when he removed the pawn that was protecting his knight. The loss of the centre knight ruined Zhang’s game. He resigned on the 25th move following a devastating rook check by Nathoo.
