Young Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri held top seed Wang Hao of China to a creditable draw in the second round of the Abu Dhabi Masters chess tournament.
Playing the white side of a Benoni defense, Suri was clinical in his approach and got a good position when the middle game surfaced. The Chinese Grandmaster found his way out with a positional piece sacrifice and in the end it was a draw through repetition.
Highest-rated Indian Abhijeet Gupta was held to a draw by compatriot Diptayan Ghosh who held on to his own with black pieces. As many as 13 players were in joint lead on two points from as many games and the list includes three Indian GMs in Vidit Gujrathi, G.N. Gopal and M. R. Lalith Babu.
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The nine-round event will now have a rest day with a blitz chess tournament and the battle will resume with a double round day on Saturday.
Important results (Indians unless specified): Second round: Vaibhav Suri (1.5) drew with Wang Hao (Chn, 1.5); Yuriy Kryvoruchko (Ukr, 2) bt Ankit Rajpara (1); Valeriy Neverov (Ukr, 1) lost to Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 2); Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 2) bt Vugar Rasulov (Aze, 1); Ulvi Bajarani (Aze, 1) lost to Andrei Istratescu (Fra, 2); Zahar Efimenko (Ukr, 2) bt Sahaj Grover (1); P. Shyam Nikil (1.5) drew with Tigran Petrosian (Arm, 1.5); Abhijeet Gupta (1.5) drew with Diptayan Ghosh (1.5); Murali Karthikeyan (1.5) drew with Arman Pashikian (Arm, 1.5); Amin Bassem (Egy, 1.5) drew with M. Shyam Sundar (1.5); Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2) bt Tamas Meszaros (Hun, 1); Shardul Gagare (1.5) drew with Vladimir Burmakin (Rus, 1.5); A.R. Saleh Salem (UAE, 2) bt Ramnath Bhuvanesh (1); Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan (1.5) drew with Viorel Iordachescu (Mda, 1.5); Sergey Volkov (Rus, 1.5) drew with V.A.V. Rajesh (1.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (2) bt Eesha Karavade (1); Mitra Hejazipour (Iri, 1) lost to G.N. Gopal (2); Adam Horvath (Hun, 2) bt P. Iniyan (1); Siva Mahadevan (0) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (1); L.N. Ram Aravind (0.5) drew with Estremera Panos Sergio (Esp, 0.5); Majid Laabi Chian (Iri, 0.5) drew with Fenil Shah (0.5).