Tradewise Gibralatar chess: Adhiban beats Muzychuk to jump to joint fourth

Gibraltar: Putting a disappointing loss in the previous round behind, Grandmaster B Adhiban rose back in contention by defeating Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine in the sixth round of the Masters section of Tradewise Gibralatar chess festival, here on Monday.

Having lost to tournament leader Hikaru Nakamura in the previous round, Adhiban knew he had to win in the sixth round and the former national champion delivered the goods with black pieces to take his tally up to a respectable five points out of a possible six.

Nakamura meanwhile remained unstoppable in the 175000 Pounds Sterling (About Rs. 1.7 Crores) festival as he recorded his sixth straight victory in the tournament at the expense of top seed and former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

The American, on six points, is now half a point ahead of Yangyi Yu of China and David Howell of England while Adhiban shares the fourth spot with Axel Bachmann of Paraguay, women's world champion Yifan Hou of China, Daniel Naroditsky of United States and young German International Master Dennis Wagner who all have five points apiece.

With four rounds still remaining, as many as 19 players are still in the hunt for the top prizes. This pack includes five Indians and topping the charts here is P Harikrishna along with Surya Shekhar Ganguly, S P Sethuraman, M R Lalith Babu and M R Venkatesh.

It turned out to be a dull day for Harikrishna as he played out a draw with compatriot Ganguly out of a Catalan opening where the former played black, Harikrishna got easy equality as black and did not have to exert much as the players reached an opposite coloured Bishops endgame in quick time.