Abhijeet Gupta beats Kotsur to stay in hunt

Dubai: Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta stayed in hunt with a lucky victory against Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan in the sixth round of Dubai International open chess tournament here.

After a defeat at the hands of tournament leader Romain Edouard of France in the previous round from a position of strength, it was Gupta`s turn to be lucky as he won from a drawn endgame against Kotsur to stay in hunt in the 50000 USD prize money tournament. Romain Edouard, however, continued with his winning ways and downed highly regarded Vladimir Akopian of Armenia in the sixth round to remain in sole lead with 5.5 points. Gupta turned out to be second amongst 4 pointers to score a victory and now shares the second spot along side Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland. With just three rounds to come, the tournaments in still wide open but Edouard continues to be lucky. The French Grandmaster survived a hopelessly lost position against Gupta in round five and then went on to score over Akopian too from a lost middle game. Gupta got back to back white games and did not make the best use of them. Kotsur, who is not a very active Grandmaster any more, got a slightly worse opening but managed things well to get a drawn endgame on board with a rook for a Bishop. However, with the clock ticking away, the Kazakh Grandmaster lost his way in the endgame and found himself staring at a forced checkmate as Abhijeet combined his queen and bishop well. Among other Indians in the fray, Grandmaster Debashish Das was at the top of his game in holding out Gawain Jones of England to a draw. It was a tense affair as Das launched a king side attack early in the middle game and Jones had to struggle. On the flip side for the Indian contingent, M R Lalith Babu ended on the losing side against Tigran Petrosian after a long drawn queen and pawn endgame. Lalith could have drawn with some precise manoeuvres but Petrosian`s continues pressure with some extra pawns had the final say. Grandmaster Sahaj Grover recovered to beat Iranian girl Dorsa Derakhshani. Important and Indian results round 6 (Indians unless specified): Romain Edouard (Fra, 5.5) beat Vladimir Akopian (Arm, 4); Constantin Lupulescu (Rou, 4) lost to Sebastian Bogner (Sui, 5); Abhijeet Gupta (5) beat Pavel Kotsur (Kaz, 4); Gawain Jones (Eng, 4) drew with Debashis Das (4); Solak Dragan (Tur, 4) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (4); Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo, 4) drew with Diptayan Ghosh (4); M R Lalith Babu (3.5) lost to Tigran Petrosian (4.5); Mihajlo Stojanovic (Cro, 4) beat Aniruddha Deshpande (3); Abhishek Kelkar (4) beat Mastrovasilis Athanasios (Gre, 3); Pontus Carlsson (Swe, 4) beat Ivana Maria Furtado (3); Sahaj Grover (4) beat Dorsa Derakhshani (Iri, 4); Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Iri, 3.5) drew with Sayantan (3.5); V Karthik (4) beat Mikhail Ekdyshman (Rus, 3); Eduard Kanter (Rus, 3.5) beat Nimmy George (3); Nishant Malhotra (3.5) beat Gudmundur Kjartansson (Isl, 2.5); S Ravi Teja (3.5) beat Pratyusha Bodda (2.5); Prince Bajaj (2.5) lost to Siva Mahadevan (3.5); C R G Krishna (3) beat Harikrishnan Samyuktha (2.5); Maria Carolina Blanco Acevedo (Ven, 2) lost to Swapnil Dhopade(3); Osman Abdelgadir (Sud, 2) lost to Harshal Shahi (3).