Dubai: Grandmasters Romain Edouard of France and Abhijeet Gupta of India beat their respective eighth round opponents to take the top two positions in the standings going into the final round of the Dubai Open Chess Championship at Dubai Chess Club.
Edouard smashed the Modern Benoni defence of GM Anuar Ismagambetov of Kazakhstan by controlling the centre and attacking on the king-side. Constricted in space and facing a mating attack, Ismagambetov resigned on the 31st move, giving the solo lead in the championship to Edouard with seven points.
Gupta is half a point adrift after he crushed the Slav Defence of GM Sebastian Bogner of Switzerland, penetrating with his rook on the seventh rank on move 25. Bogner was forced to give the exchange on the 37th move and resigned six moves later.
Six players trail in joint-third with six points each, namely GMs Hrvoje Stevic of Croatia, top seed Anton Korobov and Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine, Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia, Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela and Gawain Jones of England.
In the eighth round, Korobov beat GM Axel Bachmann of Paraguay, Jones outplayed GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan, Iturrizaga triumphed over GM Goran Dizdar of Croatia, Rakhmanov bested GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh, Stevic beat GM Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan and Kuzubov outplayed GM Mihajlo Stojanovic of Serbia.
Sixteen players follow with 5.5 points each in the race for the $50,000 (Dh183,649) in cash prizes for the top 16 places, with a first prize of $10,000.
In the ninth and final round, leader Edouard faces top seed GM Korobov, Gupta meets Iturrizaga and Stevic and Jones play each other, while Kuzubov has a chance to get even with Rakhmanov.
The tournament is free for spectators and starts 5.30pm on Wednesday at the Dubai Chess Club in Dubai. The closing ceremony will be at 7pm.
Other final-round matches between 5.5-pointers include: Andrei Istratescu (FRA) vs Pontus Carlsson (SWE), Sebastian Bogner (SUI) vs Csaba Balogh (HUN), Ante Brkic (CRO) vs Bassem Amin (EGY), Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (IRI) vs Dragan Solak (TUR), Alojzije Jankovic (CRO) vs Mokhjeil Mchedlishvili (GEO), Tigran Petrosian (ARM) vs Ebrahim Ahmadinia (IRI), Anuar Ismagambetov (KAZ) vs Zaven Andriasian (ARM) and Sundar Shyam (IND) vs Babu Lalith (IND).
