Vidit Gujrathi outplayed Benjamin Bok to join World champion Magnus Carlsen and four others in the lead after the fourth round of Isle of Man chess tournament here on Tuesday.
Vidit’s 51-move victory put placed him in the joint lead after the four overnight leaders were engaged in drawn games. Frenchman Laurent Fressinet beat D. Harika to be among the leaders at 3.5 points.
Viswanathan Anand drew with Alexie Shirov – the man he beat to win the first World title in 2000 – and shared the seventh spot with, among others, teammates S. P. Sethuraman, B. Adhiban, Swapnil Dhopade and Harsha Bharathakoti.
The results:
Fourth round (involving Indians): Alexei Shirov (Lat, 3) drew with Viswanathan Anand (3); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 3) drew with S. P. Sethuraman (3); Benjamin Bok (Ned, 2.5) lost to Vidit Gujrathi (3.5); Swapnil Dhopade (3) drew with Sergei Movsesian (Arm, 3); Laurent Fressinet (Fra, 3.5) bt D. Harika (2.5); Boris Gelfand (Isr, 3) bt S. L. Narayanan (2); Peter Leko (Hun, 3) bt P. Magesh Chandran (2); Nihal Sarin (2) lost to B. Adhiban (3); Erwin L’Ami (Ned, 3) bt Neelotpal Das (2); Harsha Bharathakoti (3) bt Sebastian Bogner (Sui, 2); C. R.G. Krishna (2.5) drew with Jan Timman (Ned, 2.5); K. Ratnakaran (2.5) drew with Pavel Tregubov (Rus, 2); Varuzhan Akobian (USA, 2) drew with S. Kidambi (2); Swayams Mishra (1.5) lost to Ju Wenjun (Chn, 2.5); Keith Arkell (Eng, 1.5) lost to Aravindh Chithambaram (2.5); Vishnu Prasanna (2.5) bt Hemant Sharma (1.5); Arjun Kalyan (2.5) bt Nikolas Lubbe (Ger, 1.5); R. Praggnanandhaa (2.5) bt Zaki Harari (Eng, 1.5); Eesha Karavade (2) drew with Aman Hambleton (Can, 2); Johan Salomon (Nor, 2.5) bt Ojas Kulkarni (1.5).