ROMAIN EDOUARD GRABS DUBAI OPEN LEAD
French Grandmaster beats India’s Gupta and Akopian of Armenia
dubai — French Grandmaster Romain Edouard won the fifth and sixth rounds to grab the lead with 5-1/2 points in the Dubai Open Chess Championship at the Dubai Chess Club on Saturday.
Edouard beat two former Dubai Open champions, erstwhile solo leader Abhijeet Gupta of India in the fifth round and GM Vladimir Akopian of Armenia in the sixth round.
Gupta essayed the Queen’s Gambit and had a strong attack against Edouard but miscalculated his Knight sacrifice on the 43rd move and resigned five moves later.
Later in the evening, Edouard penetrated the Sicilian Defense of Akopian with two Rooks on the seventh rank and transposed to the endgame with the advantage of two pieces for a Rook. Facing two passed pawns, Akopian resigned on the 74th move.
Gupta and Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland trail in second slot at five points each. In round six, Gupta beat GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan while Bogner made short work of GM Constantin Lupulescu of Romaina.
Thirteen players are bunched together with 4.5 points each, namely, Grandmasters Axel Bachmann of Paraguay, Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela, Hrvoje Stevic and Ante Brkic of Croatia, Zaven Andriasian of Armenia, Anuar Ismagambetov of Kazakhstan, Anton Korobov and Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran, Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia, Viorel Iordachescu of Moldova, Tigran L. Petrosian of Armenia and Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh.
In round 6, Rahman smashed the Modern Defense of Istratescu in 72 moves, Petrosian used the Slav Defense to beat GM Babu Lalith of In- dia in 56 moves while Brkic beat Amirreza Pourramezanali of Iran from the black side of a Guico Piano when he was about to promote a pawn on the 63rd move.
The other games among the leaders were drawn. Akopian, Kotsur and 27 other players trail with 4 points each with 3 rounds to go in the 9-round Swiss System tournament.
On the free day last Friday, GM Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela won the Dubai Open Blitz championship where players have five minutes each for the whole game. Fifty five players joined the oneday 9-round Swiss and four players ended in a tie with 7 points each. Sudden death tie break matches were held. In the semi-finals, Iturrizaga beat Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine while Tigran Petrosian of Armenia thrashed Romain Edouard. In the finals Iturrizaga beat Petrosian to claim the blitz title.