Ruiyuan takes sole lead in Chennai Open chess

Yu Ruiyuan of China led the table with 8.5 points despite losing to compatriot Zeng Chongsheng in the 10th and penultimate round of the SDAT-RMK 4th Chennai Open International Grandmaster chess tournament here Wednesday.

Sharing the second spot with 8.0 points were top seeds Aleksandrov Aleksej (Belarus), defending champion Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukraine), Akshayraj Kore (India) and Marat Dzhumaev.

The top board game between Kore and Aleksej turned out to be an interesting fare. The Queen’s Gambit game saw both the players exchanging major pieces within the first twenty moves. Well into a triple minor piece ending, Aleksej thwarted all of Kore’s tricks and draw was agreed after 36 moves.

In the upsets of the day, Indian players hogged the limelight with Senthilvel Nitin and Vishnu Prasanna scoring over Grandmasters Bitoon Richard (Philippines) and Neelotpal Das (India), respectively. The lone achiever of the day turned out to be Ma Qun of China who made his International Master Norm.

Results (Round 10): Aleksandrov Aleksej (Belarus) 8 drew Akshayraj Kore 8, Zeng Chongsheng (China) 7.5 bt Yu Ruiyuan (China) 8.5, Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukraine) 8 bt M R Venkatesh 7, Oleksienko Mikhailo (Ukraine) 7.5 drew P Karthikeyan 7.5, Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan) 8 bt S P Sethuraman 7, John Paul Gomez (Philippines) 7.5 drew Hoang Thanh Trang (Hungary) 7.5, Vakhidov Jahongir (Uzbekistan) 6.5 lost to Barbosa Oliver (Philippines) 7.5, Danielsen Henrik (Iceland) 7 drew Himanshu Sharma 7, S Nitin 7.5 bt Bitoon Richard (Philippines) 6.5, J Deepan Chakkravarthy 7.5 bt Shashikant Kutwal 6.5, C Praveen Kumar 6.5 lost to Ma Qun (China) 7.5, Neelotpal Das 6.5 lost to V Vishnu Prasanna 7.5, Nisha Mohota 6 lost to Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh) 7, P Konguvel 6.5 drew Mark Paragua (Philippines) 6.5, Ashwin Jayaram 6.5 drew V A V Rajesh 6.5, Vaibhav Suri 7 bt Sagar Shah 6, S Ravi Teja 6 lost to R R Laxman 7, K Rathnakaran 6 lost to Gagare Shardul 7, C S Gokhale 6.5 drew R Siddharth 6.5, R Ashwath 6.5 drew Debashis Das 6.5.