Eighth seed Abhijeet Gupta defeated compatriot Eesha Karavade to share the second spot with three others at 5.5 points after seven rounds of the Reykjavik Open chess tournament at Reykjavik, Iceland, on Monday. With two rounds to go, Ivan Sokolov leads at six points.
On a day when all other Indians lost, D. Harika’s chances of making a Grandmaster norm suffered a blow following her defeat to Ukraine’s Illya Nyzhnyk.
At Cannes, Arghydip Das and V. Saravanan held eighth seed Jean-Marc Degraeve (France) and ninth seed Igor Miladinovic (Serbia), respectively, in the second round of the Cannes Open.
Deep Sengupta scored his second successive victory to be among the leaders. Saptarshi Roy posted his first win to reach 1.5 points.
The results (involving Indians):
Reykjavik Open (seventh round): Eesha Karavade (4.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (5.5); Illya Nyzhnyk (Ukr, 5.5) bt D. Harika (4.5); Yuri Shulman (USA, 5) bt Sahaj Grover (4); Tania Sachdev (4) lost to Irina Krush (USA, 5); Tiger Hillarp Persson (Swe, 4.5) bt Vishal Sareen (3.5).
Cannes Open (second round): Arghyadip Das (1.5) drew with Jean-Marc Degraeve (Fra, 1.5); Igor Mladinovic (Srb, 1.5) drew with V. Saravanan (1.5); Pierre Villegas (Fra, 1) lost to Deep Sengupta (2); Saptarshi Roy (1.5) bt Christian Valette (Fra, 0.5).
