5 In The Lead At Thai Open

After five rounds, the same number of players are sharing the lead with 4.5 points at the Thai Open: GMs Francisco Vallejo Pons, Wang Hao, Jozsef Horvath, Jan Gustafsson and IM Oliver Dimakiling.

The Thai Open is being held for the 15th time already and this year a record 19 grandmasters have traveled to Thailand. The top seed is GM Wang Hao of China, who is playing his first chess of 2015. Other notable participants are GM Nigel Short, GM Jan Gustafsson and GM Francisco Vallejo Pons.

In the first round most of the GMs faced players rated at least 400 points lower and so there were hardly any upsets. The next day was different. 

Filipino GM John-Paul Gomez was smashed in a mere 19 moves by Australian teenager Jack Puccini, who must have enjoyed that Morra Gambit:

Danish GM Allan Stig Rasmussen lost to Sharma Hemant, a 22-year-old Indian:

And then there was Australian IM Max Illingworth, the 14th seed, who was shocked by 13-year-old R. Vaishali, an Indian girl who is currently ranked as the second-strongest for her age in the world.

In the fourth round Wang Hao was held to a draw by Jozsef Horvath but the big news was GM Nigel Short's loss against the Filipino GM Oliver Barbosa. The English player basically blundered a pawn after which Barbosa made no mistake.

Made a hideous blunder while under no pressure at all and lost like an idiot to Barbosa #disgusted

— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) April 14, 2015

In the fifth round Gustafsson and Vallejo, two good friends, drew rather quickly and were joined in the lead by Wang Hao. The Chinese GM is “now fully recovered from illness” according to the official report, and won against Barbosa in a Vienna.

Hungary's Jozsef Horvath also moved to first place but more surprising is the name of IM Oliver Dimakiling of the Philippines. The 24th-seeded player defeated Indian IM Diptayan Ghosh to reach 4.5 points as well:

Veteran GMs Nigel Short and Eugene Torre both won in round five and can be found in the group on half a point behind the leaders.

2015 Thai Open | Round 5 Standings (Top 20)

(Full standings here.)

The tournament takes place in the beautiful Dusit Thani Resport in the Thai Beach resort of Pattaya. Next month the World Schools Individual Championship will be held in the same location.

Four more rounds will be played in the Thai Open; the last is on Sunday. Some 299 players from 42 countries are playing in two groups. The first prize in the open group is 100,000 Baht (2885 Euro / U.S. $3083).