Thai Open: Short, Kunte, Vallejo and Zaw lead after five rounds

Nigel Short (England), Abhijit Kunte (India), Francisco Vallejo (Spain) and Zaw Win Lay (Myanmar) are sharing the lead after five rounds at the Thai Open in Pattaya City, Thailand. Top stars Short and Vallejo both started with four wins, and today drew their mutual game in just nine moves.

The Thai Open, with a first prize of 100,000 Baht (about 2300 Euro or US $3300), is being played at the Dusit Thani Resort in Pattaya City, Thailand. This year a record entry of more than 200 players are participating. The top four boards are broadcast live here.



The field is headed by Spanish number one Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain and former world title challenger Nigel Short from England, the two highest ranked of the ten Grandmasters in the Open. Other well known players participating this year are Jan Gustafsson and Alina l'Ami, the wife of Dutch GM Erwin l'Ami.

Alina, who unfortunately hasn't blogged yet from Thailand on her excellent site, did send the following tweet yesterday: "My deep respect for Vallejo Pons and Gustaffson [sic], who came directly from Bundesliga to Thailand, arriving just 40 min before their game!"

In fact players from 40 countries have travelled to Pattaya for the tournament, with the stand-out first round game being between 10-year-old Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazakhstan and Thai number one Wisuwat Teerapabpaisit.



Abduumalik, the co-winner of the 2010 World U/10 Girls Championship, looked to be holding her own for much of the game but eventually dropped a pawn to Teerabpaisit and experience prevailed after 63 moves and four hours play.

In these early rounds few big upsets could be witnessed, and in fact many games followed the famous 'master beats amateur' scenario. The first half points were dropped by GM Sune Berg Hansen (who won the tournament last year), in round 2 against Jarred Neubronner of Singapore, and GM Tejas Bakre (India) who also drew against Ralf Steinbrecht of Germany.

After four rounds only top seeds Paco Vallejo and Nigel Short had won all their games. Naturally they were paired against each other for the 5th round, but unfortunately they decided to play it (very) safe. They drew in just nine moves, Short blaming the tough tournament schedule for the quick finish.



The co-leaders were caught by two of the chasing pack of players: Indian GM Abhijit Kunte and Zaw Win Lay of Myanmar. Another ten, including three Grandmasters, are sitting just half a point further back.

Thai fans did have plenty to cheer about as 15-year-old Warot Kananub continued his giant-killing run, defeating Indian International Master Rahul Shetty. Kananub is currently undefeated in five games against far higher ranked opposition at the Thai Open and could be on his way to becoming Thailand's first International Master.

This year the tournament coincides with the Songkran festival, the traditional Thai New Year (13-15 April). At the moment of writing no doubt many players are joining the festivities, although their next game is scheduled for tomorrow nonetheless...

Selection of games rounds 1-5

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Thailand Open 2011 | Round 5 Standings (top 40)

Rk.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	GM	Vallejo Pons Francisco	ESP	2707	4.5	16.5	0	10.0
2	GM	Short Nigel D	ENG	2676	4.5	16.0	0	9.0
3	GM	Zaw Win Lay	MYA	2382	4.5	15.5	0	10.0
4	GM	Kunte Abhijit	IND	2526	4.5	15.0	0	9.0
5	GM	Murshed Niaz	BAN	2455	4.0	16.5	0	9.5
6	FM	Illingworth Max	AUS	2345	4.0	16.5	0	9.5
7	FM	Sklyarov Dmitry V.	RUS	2415	4.0	15.0	0	9.0
8	GM	Gustafsson Jan	GER	2647	4.0	15.0	0	8.5
9		Hou Qiang	CHN	0	4.0	14.5	0	9.0
10	GM	Sriram Jha	IND	2442	4.0	14.5	0	9.0
11	IM	Morris James	AUS	2227	4.0	14.0	0	8.5
12		Sanjay N.	IND	2335	4.0	13.5	0	8.5
13	IM	Yang Kaiqi	CHN	2399	4.0	12.5	0	8.0
14		Tuomala Timo	FIN	2231	4.0	12.0	0	8.0
15	IM	Aung Aung	MYA	2324	3.5	16.5	0	10.0
16	GM	Schebler Gerhard	GER	2460	3.5	16.0	0	9.5
17	WGM	L'Ami Alina	ROU	2297	3.5	16.0	0	9.5
18	FM	Illner Achim	GER	2353	3.5	16.0	0	9.0
19	FM	Kojima Shinya	JPN	2329	3.5	16.0	0	9.0
20	GM	Hansen Sune Berg	DEN	2603	3.5	15.5	0	10.0
21	FM	Stokke Kjetil	NOR	2407	3.5	15.5	0	9.5
22		Mariano Nelson III	PHI	2197	3.5	15.5	0	9.5
23		Kananub Warot	THA	1989	3.5	15.0	0	9.0
24	GM	Bakre Tejas	IND	2530	3.5	15.0	0	9.0
25		Eng Andre Jerome	SIN	2150	3.5	15.0	0	9.0
26		Hopman Pieter	NED	2365	3.5	15.0	0	8.5
27		Singh Gurpreet Pal	IND	0	3.5	14.5	0	8.5
28	FM	Pitirojirathon Jirapak	THA	2278	3.5	14.5	0	8.0
29	IM	Mohota Nisha	IND	2324	3.5	14.0	0	9.5
30	FM	Voigt Martin	GER	2325	3.5	13.5	0	8.5
31	IM	Palit Somak	IND	2378	3.5	13.5	0	8.0
32		Neubronner Jarred	SIN	2262	3.5	13.0	0	8.5
33	FM	Berezovics Alexander	RUS	2206	3.5	11.5	0	7.0
34	WGM	Swathi Ghate	IND	2307	3.0	19.0	0	12.0
35	IM	Lahiri Atanu	IND	2350	3.0	16.0	0	10.0
36	IM	Saptarshi Roy	IND	2395	3.0	15.0	0	9.0
37		Arvind Shastry	IND	2297	3.0	15.0	0	8.5
38	WFM	Abdumalik Zhansaya	KAZ	1941	3.0	14.5	0	8.5
39		Prince Bajaj	IND	2185	3.0	14.5	0	8.5
40	IM	Willemze Thomas	NED	2390	3.0	14.5	0	8.5

Links

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• Details at Chess-Results
• Games in PGN via TWIC