Dubai: Grandmasters Romain Edouard of France and Abhijeet Gupta of India beat their respective 8th round opponents to lead alone in first and second slots, respectively, after the penultimate round of the Dubai Open Chess Championship at the Dubai Chess Club.
Edouard smashed the Modern Benoni defense of GM Anuar Ismagambetov of Kazakhstan by controlling the center and attacking on the kingside. Constricted in space and facing a mating attack, Ismagambetov resigned on the 31st move, giving solo lead to Edouard at 7 points.
Gupta crushed the Slav Defense of GM Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland, penetrating with his Rook on the seventh rank on move 25. Bogner was forced to give the exchange on the 37th move and resigned six moves later. Gupta is alone in second slot with 6.5 points.
Six players trail with 6 points each, namely GMs Hrvoje Stevic of Croatia, top seed Anton Korobov and Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine, Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia, Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela and Gawain Jones of England.
In the 8th round, Korobov beat GM Axel Bachmann of Paraguay, Jones outplayed GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan, Iturrizaga won over GM Goran Dizdar of Croatia, Rakhmanov bested GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh, Stevic beat GM Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan and Kuzubov outplayed GM Mihajlo Stojanovic of Serbia.
Sixteen players follow with 5.5 points each in the race for the $50,000 in cash prizes for the top 16 places with a first prize of $10,000.
In the 9th and last round, leader Romain Edouard faces top seed GM Antono Korobov, Abhijeet Gupta meets Eduardo Iturrizaga, Stevic and Jones play each other while Ukraine’s GM Yuriy Kuzubov has a chance to get even with Russian GM Aleksandr Rakhmanov.
The tournament is free for spectators and starts 5:30pm at the Dubai Chess Club in Dubai. Closing ceremony is at 7pm on 16th April.
Other exciting last round matches among 5.5 pointers, with first named playing White and GMs unless otherwise indicated, are: Andrei Istratescu (FRA) vs. Pontus Carlsson (SWE), Sebastian Bogner (SUI) vs. Csaba Balogh (HUN), Ante Brkic (CRO) vs. Bassem Amin (EGY), Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (IRI) vs. Dragan Solak (TUR), Alojzije Jankovic (CRO) vs. Mokhjeil Mchedlishvili (GEO), Tigran Petrosian (ARM) vs. Ebrahim Ahmadinia (IRI), Anuar Ismagambetov (KAZ) vs. Zaven Andriasian (ARM) and Sundar Shyam (IND) vs. Babu Lalith (IND).
