Three Filipino GMs share top spot

Filipino Grandmasters John Paul Gomez, Oliver Barbosa and Richard Bitoon posted their third straight wins and shared the lead in the 10th Parsvnath International Open Chess Tournament 2012 on Tuesday in New Delhi, India.

Gomez, fresh off a runner-up finish in the 4th Chennai Open Grand Master Chess over the weekend, bested Kumar Gaurav and Indian Fide Masters Vinoth Kumar and Rajesh in succession.

Barbosa prevailed over Indians Rajarishi Karthi, Thakurta Soumya and Ankit R. Rajpara, respectively, while Bitoon downed Indians Aradhya Garg, Chandika Divyasree and International Master Konguvel Ponnuswamy.

Joining the Filipinos in the huge group of perfect three pointers are top seed GM Andrei Deviatkin of Russia, GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan and GMs Abhijit Kunte and Praveen Thipsay of India.

Also unbeaten are IMs Babu Lalith, Ashwin Jayaram, Thejkumar M S, Vaibhav Suri, FM Ghosh Diptayan, Bitan Banerjee, Jaiswal Puneet, Sekar B, Gusain Himal and Shreyans K Shah of India and Zeng Chongsheng and Bai Jinshi of China.

Another Filipino entry, GM Mark Paragua, trounced Manan Rai, Akash Pc Iyer and split the point with IM Ravi Lanka of India to raised his total to 2.5 points, good for a share of 20th to 53rd place.