Dubai Grandmaster (GM) Ni Hua of China beat Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine to win the Dubai Open Chess Championship at Dubai Chess Club. Ni Hua tallied seven points out of nine rounds in a tie with four others, but prevailed with better tie-break points to take home the Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup.
Also finishing with seven points each were grandmasters Baadur Jobava and Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia, Normunds Miezis of Latvia and Chanda Sandipan of India.
Ni Hua crushed the Sicilian defence of Kuzubov in 62 moves. Mchedlishvili smashed the Benoni defence of Loek Van Wely of the Netherlands in 46 moves. Ten players tied with 6.5 points apiece taking home $1,370 (Dh5,032) each, namely Armenian grandmasters Vladimir Akopian, Tigran L. Petrosian, Zaven Andriasian and Robert Hovhannnisyan, Evgenij Miroshnichenko of Ukraine, Sergey Volkov of Russia, Zhou Weiqi of China, Ivan Sokolov of the Netherlands and Indian grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta and International Master (IM) Sunday Shiyam of India.
Top performers
Best women were Women's GM Mariya Sergeyeva of Kazakhstan with six points, IM Sopiko Khukhashvili of Georgia with 5.5 points and five-pointers Tania Sachdev of India, Wlmira Mirzoeva of Russia, Shayesteh Ghader Pour of Iran, Marina Makropoulou of Greece and Lorena Zepeda of El Salvador. Best Arab players were IM Mohammad Ezat and GM Bassem Ameen of Egypt and IM Bashir Al Qudaimi of Yemen with 5.5 points each.
Best UAE men were FM Mousa Othman and Anwar Walid with five points each and Abdul Wahab Abdullah with 4.5 points and Mohd Al Taher and Abdul Wahib Marwan with four points each. Best UAE women were Mozah Al Moaamari and Khalil Bashir with two points each.
Best Dubai men were Candidate Master Nagueb Saleh, Ali Abdullah and Naif Saleh with four points each. Best Dubai woman was Aisha Jehad with two points.
