Dubai: Grandmaster Romain Edouard of France maintained the sole lead after seven rounds of the Dubai Open Chess Championship.
Edouard declined the Queen’s gambit of GM Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland and an early exchange of queens on the ninth move led to a drawn rook-and-pawn endgame as they halved the point on the 31st move.
The truce kept Edouard in the lead at 6.5 points. Bogner follows half a point behind on six, along with Indian GM Abhijeet Gupta and GM Anuar Ismagambetov of Kazakhstan.
Gupta used the Gruenfeld defence to reach the rook and knight endgame, a pawn up against GM Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine when they drew on the 42nd move after a repetition of position.
Ismagambetov essayed the Steinitz Defence of the Ruy Lopez to beat GM Viorel Iordachescu of Moldova. Iordachescu had to give up two knights for a rook on the 33rd move and, faced with further loss of a piece, resigned on the 45th move.
Kuzubov and 18 other players are bunched together with five points each, namely Grandmasters Eduardo Itirruzaga of Venezuela, top seed Anton Korbov of Ukraine; Hrvoje Stevic, Ante Brkic and Goran Dizdar of Croatia; Zaven Andriasian and Tigran Petrosian of Armenia; Axel Bachmann of Paraguay; Pavel Kotsur and Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan; Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran; Csaba Balogh of Hungary; Bassem Amin of Egypt; Mihajlo Stojanovic of Serbia, Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh; Gawain Jones of England and IM Nico Georgiadis of Switzerland.
In the penultimate eighth round, Edouard is paired with GM Ismagambetov, while Gupta faces Bogner in the top-two matches.
Top boards are broadcast live at the Dubai Chess Club website, with a photo gallery, games download and links to video coverage on YouTube.
At stake is the Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup. A total of $50,000 (Dh184,000) in cash prizes is up for grabs for the first 16 places, with a top prize of $10,000 for the champion.
Games are open free to the public and start at 5.30pm at the Dubai Chess Club in Dubai.
