Dubai, Apr 14: Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta kept himself in contention after he settled for a draw with Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine in the seventh round of 16th Dubai International open chess tournament here today.
It turned out to be a tough day for the highest rated Indian in Dubai open as Kuzubov was on top for the major part of the game and the draw was achieved only through a reckless repetition of position by the Ukrainian.
The lead position remained unchanged as Romain Edouard of France settled for a quick draw with Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland at the top of the tables.
The half point took the French Grandmaster to six points out of a possible seven and he stayed half a point clear of Gupta, Bogner and Anuar Ismagembetov of Kazakhstan who made merry at the expense of Viorel Iordachescu of Moldova.
While Edouard remains a clear favourite for the title here, Gupta is still in with a chance if he can use his white pieces effectively against Bogner in the penultimate round. Just two rounds remain in the USD 50000 prize money event.
For once, the Grunfeld defense did not prove useful for Gupta as Kuzubov was well armed. Over the years, the opening has often led to some very good results for Gupta but on this day Kuzubov digested the extra pawn in one of the recently popular system quite easily.
Gupta fought on, bravely creating counter play on different parts of the board but a pawn less endgame was not easy to defend. However here, Kuzubov lost track of the situation and inadvertently allowed a three-fold repetition leading to split of the point.
Among other Indians in the fray, Grandmaster Sahaj Grover did well to darw with higher ranked Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia out of a Sicilian closed opening as white. Mchedlishvili was in a spot of bother in the minor piece endgame but a stern defense saved the day for the Georgian.
M R Lalith Babu defeated Kazim Gulamali of United States to match Grover on 4.5 points and these two in fact meet each other in the next round. Ashwin Jayaram and V Karthik are having 4.5 points in their kitty. (PTI)
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