Lalith Babu Shocks Kuzubov; Negi crushes Kayumov in Dubai

Lalith Babu defeated Yuriy Kuzubov while Indian GM Parimarjan Negi outclassed his Uzbek counterpart Dmitry Kayumov to be among the leaders after the end of third round of 13th Dubai International open chess tournament.

Dubai: National Junior Champion M R Lalith Babu defeated Ukrainian Grandmaster Yuriy Kuzubov while Indian

GM Parimarjan Negi outclassed his Uzbek counterpart Dmitry Kayumov to be among the leaders after the end of third round of 13th Dubai International open chess tournament here. On another fine day for Indian GM norm aspirants, International Master M Shyam Sundar caused another major upset at the expense of Grandmaster Emanuel Berg of Sweden. Young IM N Srinath also continued with his new found form and held Artashes Minasian to a draw while Saptarshi Roy gave nothing away and split the point with second seed Vladimir Akopian. With six rounds still to come in the USD 45000 prize money tournament, Negi and Lalith Babu share the lead along with Guliev Sarhan of Azerbaijan, Russian Sergey Volkov and Davit Petrosian of Armenia with a perfect score. Not too far behind is top seeded Krishnan Sasikiran who notched up a fine victory against GM Andrey Gutov of Russia to take his tally to 2.5 points out of a possible three. M Shyam Sundar, R R Laxman and former National champion B Adhiban are amongst those who have 2.5 points in their kitty. Lalith Babu was the hero of the day from Indian perspective. Yuriy Kuzubov is a feared opponent especially after his fine exploits in India but the Andhra-boy who has a GM norm to his credit was never intimidated. After a Queen pawn opening Babu realized he had chances in a queen-less middle game and came on top in the complexities that ensued. Parting with the Bishop pair was the key for the Indian and he romped home in style. Negi accounted for Kayumov froma Berlin defense game. Playing white, the Delhi-based employee of BPCL got in the groove early on and got a slight advantage. Kayumov could not handle the pressure towards the end and caved in. S Nitin did well to hold former World Junior Champion Abhijeet Gupta who now needs a few good wins to be back in contest. Worse for the major part of the game, Nitin capitalized on an optical blunder by Abhijeet to win back a lost pawn, pressed for advantage but in the end got a half point. Amongst other Indians in the fray, Tania Sachdev won a nice game with black against Abdo Somoff of Libya while GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly came back to winning ways defeating Al-Tarbosh Ward of Syria. PTI