Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta scored a fine victory over Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland in the eighth and penultimate round of 16th Dubai International open chess tournament here on Tuesday.
Things fell in place perfectly for Gupta in the middle game and he did some precise calculation to take the sole second place with just a round to go in the $50,000 prize-money tournament. Gupta will meet Edouardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela in the final round.
Romain Edouard of France continued to remain in sole lead after he accounted for Kazakh GM Anuar Ismagambetov. It was an easy outing for the Frenchman, who used white to maximum effect. Edouard took his tally to seven points out of a possible eight.
Six players are also in contention for a podium finish with good results in the penultimate round.
Top seed Anton Korobov of Ukraine, compatriot Yuriy Kuzubov, Gawain Jones of England, defending champion Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia, Edouardo Itturizaga of Venezuela, who had it easy as black against Paraguay’s Axel Bachmann, and Croatian Hrvoje Stevic have six points apiece.
Among other Indians, M.R. Lalith Babu defeated Sahaj Grover while M. Shyam Sundar did well to down Russian Sergey Volkov to reach 5.5 points. Both Shyam Sundar and Lalith need a victory in the final round for a good finish.
Important results: Eighth round: Romain Edouard (FRA, 7) bt Anuar Ismagambetov (KAZ, 5.5); Abhijeet Gupta (6.5) bt Sebastian Bogner (SUI, 5.5); Anton Korobov (UKR, 6) bt Axel Bachmann (PAR, 5); Gawain Jones (ENG, 6) bt Pavel Kotsur (KAZ, 5); Mihajlo Stojanovic (SRB, 5) lost to Yuriy Kuzubov (UKR, 6); Dizdar Goran (CRO, 5) lost to Eduardo Iturrizaga (VEN, 6).
Aleksandr Rakhmanov (RUS, 6) bt Ziaur Rahman (DUB, 5); Petr Kostenko (KAZ, 5) lost to Hrvoje Stevic (CRO, 6).
Mikheil Mchedlishvili (GEO, 5.5) bt Ashwin Jayaram (4.5); Sergey Volkov (RUS, 4.5) lost to M. Shyam Sundar (5.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (5.5) bt Sahaj Grover (4.5); Pontus Carlsson (SWE, 5.5) bt V. Karthik (4.5); S. Ravi Teja (4.5) lost to Debashis Das (5).
Aniruddha Deshpande (4) lost to Athanasios Mastrovasilis (GRE, 5); Abhishek Kelkar (4.5) drew with Diptayan Ghosh (4.5); Ivana Maria Furtado (4) lost to Melia Salome (GEO, 5); E. Momeni (IRI, 4) lost to Swapnil Dhopade (5); Harshal Shahi (4.5) drew with Mikhail Ekdyshman (RUS, 4.5); C.R.G. Krishna (5) bt Elena Partac (MDA, 4); Nishant Malhotra (3.5) lost to Dinara Saduakassova (KAZ, 4.5).
Prince Bajaj (4.5) bt Erik Jacobson (SWE, 3.5); Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (IRI, 4.5) bt Pratyusha Bodda (3.5); Martin Lokander (SWE, 4.5) bt Siva Mahadevan (3.5); Nimmy George (3) lost to Felix Tuomainen (SWE, 4); Maria Carolina Blanco Acevedo (VEN, 3.5) bt Samyuktha Harikrishnan (2.5); Osman Abdelgadir (SUD, 2.5) drew with Akshay Halagannavar (3).
