Kunte leads Indian challenge in Dubai Open

DUBAI, APRIL 16. Grandmaster Abihijit Kunte will lead the Indian challange in the galaxy of a record 115 contestants from 28 countries including 35 Grandmasters in the $ 5,000 Dubai Open chess championship 2001 here.

Kunte, rated 2568 and ranked 18th, would be in the race for the top slot and is expected to face tough challange from Grandmaster Kharlov Andrei rated 2639 and the top seed of the tournament and 63 titled players.

The Indian players arrived in the city on Sunday with a eight- member contingent which included International Masters R.B. Ramesh, Sandipan Chanda, Neelotpal Das, FIDE Masters T.S. Ravi, C.S. Gokhale, Rahul Shetty and Dinesh Kumar Sharma. The tournament is an opportunity for the budding Indian Grandmasters to showcase their mettle against the top Grandmasters of the world. The seeded players include Grandmaster Filippov Valeri rated 2619, Magomedov Magaram (2608), Aleksandrov Aleksej (2610), Vladimirov Evgeny (2612), Ehlvest Jaan (2638) and Lputian Smbat (2607).

FIDE president IlyumzhiNov Kirsan will attend the opening ceremony at Dubai chess club. The Dubai Open instituted in 1999 has developed four fold to become part of the FIDE's world chess association official event and has attained the approval as an officially rated tournament and for title norms. There will be nine rounds of Swiss system and FIDE's time control under the Fischer system.

Kunte, fresh from his success in chess Olympiad, Istanbul, is hoping to surpass the Elo 2600 mark and join the elite super Grandmasters. Abhijit is confident about his performance and his hopeful that his teammates would attain the title norms.

- UNI

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