Five tied for top spot in Dubai Open Chess

Grandmaster Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli of Venezuela beat the existing solo leader Surya Shekhar Ganguly of India in the penultimate eighth round of the Dubai Open Chess Championship at Dubai Chess Club to force a tense five-way tie for first.

The 29-year-old former 2010 Dubai champion used the Caro-Kann defence and won two pawns converting to the endgame to force Ganguly to resign on the 39th move. Iturrizaga, Ganguly and three others now share the lead with six-and-a-half points each, namely S.P. Sethuraman of India, Diego Flores of Argentina and Ahmad Adly of Egypt.

Sethuraman crushed the Petroff Defense of Alexander Zubov of Ukraine in 58 moves. Adly smashed the Gruenfeld defence of Emre Can of Turkey in 41 moves and Flores used the English Opening to demolish Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran in 40 moves.

$50,000 prizes

Top seed Yuriy Kryvoruchko of Ukraine, grandmaster Gawain Jones of England and Vladislav Kovalev of Belarus follow with six points each in the race for US$50,000 (Dh183,625) in cash prizes with a top prize of US$13,000 and the Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Cup.

A record 164 players from 33 countries are taking part in the tournament, which runs from April 1-12, including 36 grandmasters, 24 international masters, five women grandmasters, seven Women international masters, 16 Fide masters and four women Fide masters.

For more information, visit www.dubaichess.ae or find full results and standings in chess-results.com.