Abhijit, Sandipan register crucial victories

DUBAI, APRIL 22. India's hopes in the Dubai Open chess championship have been strengthened with GM Abhijit Kunte and Sandipan Chanda registering crucial victories against their rival Grandmasters in the sixth round.

With this victory, Kunte with 4.5 points, moves to the second spot along with seven other Grandmasters, close behind GMs Asrian Karen of Armenia and Jaan Ehlvest of Estonia sharing the lead with five points at the end of the sixth round of the Dubai Open chess championship.

Kunte pulled off a sensational victory over Grandmaster Al- Modiahki of Qatar in a middlegame variation. Kunte adopted the Breyer variation in the Spanish Ruy Lopez and obtained a better position. Recalling his earlier experience in similar situations against top rated players, Kunte said he had a thorough knowledge about this type of middlegame.

Modiahki gave up a bishop pair to create a central passed pawn in the sixth rank. The Indian Grandmaster utilised the bishop pair to eliminate this dangerous passed pawn.

Modiahki's queen was trapped and he had a rook and knight as compensation. Kunte won with superb technical play exploiting the lack of coordination among white's pieces in 50 moves.

In an another match, Sandipan Chanda scored an upset victory over second-seeded Russian Grandmaster Valery Filippov of Russia and took his tally to four points.

Sandipan outclassed his opponent with enterprising play in a Sicilian defence. Sandipan employed the Rossolimo variation and inflicted weakness in Filippov's pawn structure.

Despite Filippov's resistance, Sandipan outwitted the experienced Grandmaster in a tactical sequence and emerged with an exchange up in the ending.

Flippov exchanged queens early and sacrificed an exchange counterplay. The Indian prodigy drove home his advantage with impeccable technique.

After his win, Sandipan said the endgame was a tricky position and he had to avoid several pitfalls in posting a important victory.

Important results (sixth round: Karen Asrian (5) drew with Drazen Sermek (4.5); Ehlvest Jaan (5) bt Alexei Fedorov (4); Igor Glek (4) drew with Andrei Kharlov (4); Valeriy Neverov (3.5) lost to Evgeny Vladimirov (4.5); Aleksej Alexandrov (4.5) bt Elmar Magerramov (3.5); Alexander Galkin (4) drew wqith Alexander Motylev (4); Maxim Sorokin (4) drew with Andre ShariyazdaNov (4); Goran Dizdar (4) drew with Mihail Kobalija (4); Alexey Kuzmin (4) drew with Alexander Volzhin (4); Shukhrat Safin (4.5) bt Evgeny Pigusov (3.5); Artashes Minasian (4.5) bt Yuri Yakovich (3.5); Pavel Kotsur (3.5) lost to Dusko Pavasovic (4.5); Raouf Gadjily (4.5) bt Ashot Anastasian (3.5); Mohamad al-Modiahki (3.5) lost to Abhijit Kunte (4.5); Sandipan Chanda (4) bt Valerij Filippov (3); Zurab Sturva (4) bt T.S. Ravi (3); Evgeny Sveshnikov (3.5) drew with Dinesh Kumar Sharma (3.5); Marat Dzhumaev (3) lost to Morteza Mahjoob (4); Abdullah Mansoor (3) lost to Evgeni Ermenkov (4); Rahul Shetty (3) drew with Taher Vakhidov (3); Shojaat Ghane (3.5) bt Sergey Kayumov (2.5); C.S. Gokhale (3.5) bt R.B. Ramesh (2.5); Sayed Javad Alavi (3.5) bt Neelotpal Das (2.5).

- UNI & PTI

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