GM John Paul Gomez remains in the hunt

MANILA, Philippines—Filipino Grandmaster John Paul Gomez downed Navin Kanna of India and remained in contention after six rounds of the SDAT-RMK 4th Chennai Open Grand Master chess tournament Sunday in Chennai, India.

With 5.0 points, Gomez climbed into a tie for fifth to 15th places, just half a point behind a four-way deadlock for first among top seed GM Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, GM Mikhailo Oleksienko of Uk-raine, IM Vaibhav Suri of India and Yu Ruiyuan of China.

But another Filipino GM, Richard Bitoon, bowed to Debashis Das of India and remained with 4.0 points like compatriot GMs Mark Paragua and Oliver Barbosa.

Paragua split the point with Hemant Sharma of India, while Barbosa routed Harini S also of India.

Oleksienko nipped IM Das Neeoltpal of India, Suri crushed IM Vishnu Prasanna of India, and Ruiyuan clobbered IM Akshayraj Kore of India.

Gomez was tied with GM Martin Kravtsiv of Ukraine, GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh, GM Hoang Thanh Trang of Hungary, Ma Qun and Zeng Chongsheng of China, GM Sheturaman SP, and Indian IMs Himashu Sharma, Konguvel Ponnuswamy, Karthikeyan P and Das.

Aleksandrov outplayed IM Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan, Oleksienko nipped IM Das Neeoltpal of India, Suri crushed IM Vishnu Prasanna of India, and Ruiyuan clobbered IM Akshayraj Kore of India.

In the seventh round, Gomez will meet IM Karthikeyan, Bitoon will face Hemant, Barbosa will play Pradeep Kumar of India and Paragua will tangle with Navalgund Niranjan of India.