Six share lead in Dubai Open Chess
dubai — Indian teen sensation Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari continued to share lead with five others (4.5 points) at the end of five rounds in the 21st Dubai Open Chess Championship at the Dubai Chess Club.
Raghunandan, 18, drew with GM Aleksandar Indjic of Serbia after 60 moves of a Rook and Pawn endgame. Indjic shares the lead at the halfway mark together with IM Yeoh Li Tian of Malaysia, 20, and GMs Maxim Matlakov of Russia, Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine and Deepan Chakravarthy of India.
Matlakov crushed the Nimzo Indian defense of Bellahcene Bilel of Algeria in 25 moves. Kuzubov used the Reti opening and won with a surprising Queen sacrifice forcing mate in 40 moves against GM Santos Ruiz Miguel of Spain. Deepan essayed the Torre Attack to beat GM Mareco Sandro of Argentina in 39 moves.
Yeoh Li Tian used the Caro Kann Defense and won a Bishop on the 21st move. The Malaysian used his extra piece to attack and force resignation on the 35th move.
On Friday, GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia won the blitz championship, prevailing in a tie-break with GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam and Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine with 7.5 points each. A strong field of 91 players competed in the blitz including 20 grandmasters and 8 International Masters.
Mchedlishvili beat Abdul Hameed Afsal, Rocky Pabalan of the Philippines, IMs K. Rathnakaran and S.Niti of India, GMs Mustafa Yilmaz of Turkey and Alan POichot of Argentina. The Georgian drew with GMs Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran, Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine and Le Quang Liem of Vietnam.
GM Salem A.R. Saleh emerged the best Emirati player with a score of 7 points.
At stake is the Sheikh Rashid bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup. Games in the 9-round Swiss System are scheduled 5:30pm daily. Top games are broadcast live on chess sites. Visit chess-rsults. com for round by round results and to download games.