The Bangkok Chess Club Open saw many big fights in round four with the big upset of the day being GM Oliver Barbosa’s win over GM Nigel Short and which helped him join two former champions in GM Francisco Vallejo Pons and GM Jan Gustafsson on 4/4 and continue as one of the leaders.
Gustafsson has so far been arguably playing the most incisive chess and is looking good to win the title he first won in 2011 in the very same venue even if Pons who has been getting better and better with each game might like to differ!
Top seeded GM Wang Hao could not get the better of GM Jozsef Horvath and is now half a point behind on 3.5/4 which gives them both a share of fourth to fifteenth places together with GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Parab Ritviz, IM Ikeda Junta, IM Diptayan Ghosh, GM Darwin Laylo, GM Eugene Torre, Gerhard Schebler, IM Tapani Sammalvuo, IM Swapnil S Dhopade and IM Oliver Dimakiling.
Of the other favourites GM Bartosz Socko was held by IM Anton Smirnov to drop him into a share of sixteen place while veteran Torre, Asia’s legendary first grandmaster, ended the run of FM Jack Puccini.
Report by Peter Long
Dusit Thani Pattaya – the lagoon at sunset