R Vaishali has taken the lead at the 57th Biel Chess Festival GMT Challengers 2024 in Switzerland.
The Indian Grandmaster who was in 2nd place at the end of Round 2, has now become the table topper with a hard-fought win over Ihor Samunenkov of Ukraine in Round 3. She has now achieved a hat-trick of wins at the tournament thus far.
Vaishali, who played with the black pieces, nearly lost the game due to her aggressive strategy against her opponent Ihor Samunenkov who was playing with white. Although Vaishali played a g-pawn to create some activity on the opponent’s kingside, she did not realize that this move had left her own Kingside exposed.
Ivor failed to capitalize on this blunder made by Vaishali and eventually succumbed to defeat due to the relentless attack by the black pieces. Continuous pressure forced the white king into a vulnerable position, leading to checkmate.
With a current score of 17/26, Vaishali is now 2.5 points ahead of her competitor Salem Saleh of UAE.
In GMT Masters Round 3, GM R Praggnanandhaa drew with Haik Martirosyan who is Armenia’s No 1.
Meanwhile, Abhimanyu Mishra maintained his sole lead in the category by drawing with Liem Le Quang of Vietnam, who incidentally is a two-time Biel GMT Champion.
Aryan and Mendonca win in MTO
In the Round 4 of Master Tournament Open (MTO), Aryan Chopra defeated Haowen Xue of China and Leon Luke Mendonca got the better of FM Marius Deuer of Germany to join the nine way lead 3.5/4.
Meanwhile, Krishnan Sasikiran and Koustav Chatterjee drew with Ori Kobo of Israel and Rinat Jumabayev of Kazakhstan respectively.
No Indian is in the top 3 just yet in MTO.