Two wins and three draws in the first half of the twice round robin occasion have kept Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov in the lead, half a point ahead of Evgeny Alekseev with two wins and a loss, and a point in front of Radoslav Wojtaszek and Parimarjan Negi, both at 50%. The games are all thrilling and hard-fought. We bring you a report after round five, with games and videos.

GM Anton Korobov of Ukraine shot in to sole lead beat top seed Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland in the fourth round of AICF-AAI Chess Cup. Aided by the victory Korobov took his tally to three points out of a credible four and the Ukrainian now enjoys a full point lead over Wojtaszek, Evgeny Alekseev of Russia, Parimarjan Negi and Abhijeet Gupta who all have two points each.

On another good-looking day the other two games ended in hard fought draws. Krishnan Sasikiran yet again could not capitalize on what appeared to be a huge benefit, while Parimarjan Negi also missed some chances to let Abhijeet Gupta off the hook.

Korobov acknowledge he was not happy with his place out of the Petrosian System in the Queen’s Indian Defense. Playing white the Ukrainian winner was on the doubtful right from move 15, and it was only a blunder by the Polish GM that gave him attractive chances. Soon after the first time control Korobov spotted a planned chance and went on to win a pawn. The process afterward looked easy the way Korobov played it.

Sasikiran employed the Catalan opening and the players followed hypothetical lines that give white a miniscule benefit. Alekseev however fought well in the middle game to keep the balance but a mistaken plan left the Russian to suffer for a long time. Sasikiran should have won with correct play, but in the second time control the Indian missed chances and Alekseev steady with some inventive play.

Fight between players having enjoyed World winner status is always excitedly expected and it was no dissimilar when Round 4 of the ongoing London Chess Classic 2012 in development at the Olympia Centre in London had Viswanathan Anand rutted against Vladimir Kramnik.

The NIIT Mind winner Viswanathan Anand had wrested his first standard world title from Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 at Bonn, Germany but the fourth round meet was more a display of solid chess without much excitement and one which ended without a important result.

Meanwhile Magnus Carlsen provided profusion of enthusiasm by defeating Gawain Jones and surpassed the magical Elo 2856 in Live Ratings, the highest ever score logged by Gary Kasparov. Albeit these ratings are not official but nevertheless invoke attention of chess enthusiasts and those maintenance tabs on information.

Carlsen is now the sole leader in this 9 player Round Robin contest with 10 points while Kramnik follows next, with 8 points. A success garners 3 points and one point is awarded for a draw. Wednesday is a rest day for the contest.

Amongst other games Levon Aronian who has been awfully out of form, scored his first profession over a blundering Gawain Jones while Hikaru Nakamura once again toiled without much luck in trying to convert a slightly advantageous position into success against Michael Adams.

Kramnik however stuck to his favorite Berlin Defense, the one which he had extensively and efficiently used to defeat Kasparov in their World Title Match. However well prepared with theory, there were hardly any astonishing moments and both reached a blocked location, preferring to manoeuvre internally. After 40 moves, the packed looking board was blocked and neither player had any mobility to chances to make progress and peace was thus signed.

Grandmaster and previous world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta will front the Indian challenge in the Fujairah International chess contest that gets underway here. Currently ranked fourth in the country, Gupta is playing his first contest after the Chess Olympiad where he bagged the silver medal on the fourth board playing for Team India.

The Indian has rise himself to 2667 ELO rating points and the prospect are high even with the attendance of a very strong field here. Gupta is not the lone Indian hopeful in the 50500 USD prize money tournaments as multiple times national winner Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Sandipan Chanda have it in them to make the best on their day.

For the records, this will be in the middle of the strongest ever contest in Asia with presence of over 20 players above 2600 rating in the fray. The top seed is going to be Baadur Jobava of Georgia who is an associate of the top-50 club of the world along with Etienne Bacrot of France who starts as the second seed.

The attendance of the likes of Alexander Moiseenko of Ukraine, Liem Le Quang of Vietnam, Chinese duo of Ni Hua and Li Chao certainly makes this a very particular contest which the chess buffs hope will become an annual affair like the Dubai worldwide open.

Abhijeet will have his task cut out. The Indian is likely to start as the eighth seed. This is almost positively the toughest open I am playing and the focus is on just to play well. The start is often important in strong events and I hope to get a polite one, said Gupta about his chances.

Ganguly has been going through a rough patch recently and it`s time to make reward for the regular associate of World winner Vishwanathan Anand`s team. At the just ended Spanish league, the Indian lost four games in all.

Tejas Bakre is the other Indian Grandmaster in the fray who would like to earn back some lost evaluation points. The list of GM norm hopefuls from India is long with Vishnu Prasanna, Debashish Das, S Satyapragyan, Ashwin Jayaram, Aditya Udeshi and V Saravanan in the hunt.

City girl Mary Ann Gomes became only the third player in last 10 years to keep hold of the National women’s leader chess title when she success in Jalgaon on Saturday. The competition was much tougher this time with almost all leading players of the country taking part in the meet, Mary Ann told TOI after returning home on Monday.

Players like Bhakti Kulkarni, Eesha Karavade, Soumya Swaminathan and others played very good chess and the lead kept altering hands after almost every round. In that admiration, it was quite an enjoyable opposition this time, she said.

Despite being half-a-point behind three players who together shared the lead going into the final round, the 23-year-old city girl won the title beating statemate Nisha Mohta with white pieces in the 11 th round.

I just intense on my game against Nisha who was playing very well. Even after I won, I was not sure about the title as the other matches were still going on. I was pleased when I got to know the leaders had drawn their matches, Mary Ann, who has an Elo rating of 2384, said.

The Woman Grandmaster said she badly wanted to win the title as it would have certain her spot in the next edition of the World Chess Championship. I am delighted to have made the cut. It will be my maiden outside in the WCC. It is a great honour and a big challenge, she said.

Mary Ann did not do well in last month’s National Premier Meet in the city where she was the only female contributor, but it was a good preparation for National Women’s meet. The Kolkata meet had a very strong field and I played top Grandmasters. And though I did not do too well, it was a good training for the contest in Jalgaon where I again faced a strong tackle in every match, she said.

Sri Lanka who will host the 6th World Carrom Championship 2012 at Galadari Hotel, Colombo has selected two teams with the intend of defending their title in October. Accordingly the men’s team will be go ahead by national champion Nishantha Fernando while Joseph Roshita has been selected as the women’s team captain.

The team comprises of Chamil Cooray, Mohamed Sherifdeen, Dimal Senaratne and Ajith Chandrasoma while Madushika Kanchanamala, Yashika Rahubadda, Chalani Lakmali and Arosha Wickremasinghe will describe Sri Lanka in the women’s team. Among the contribute countries for the 6th World Carrom Championship 2012 are hosts Sri Lanka, India, UK, Spain, Malaysia, Italy, Sweden, Japan, Maldives, Germany, Netherlands, Korea, Pakistan, France, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, USA, Dubai, Nepal, Bangladesh, Czech Republic, Canada and Poland.

To buy quality Chess Sets,Carrom Coins, board games and Chess Accessories, visit carromgear.com