Dubai: India’s Grand Master B. Adhiban, Uzbekistan’s Rustam Kasimjanov and China’s Yu Yangyi beat their respective opponents to remain tied for the top spot after six rounds the Asian Continental Chess Championship being played at the Sharjah Chess Club.
The three players have five points each as former Asian women’s champion Irene Sukandar of Indonesia maintained her sole position at the top with 5.5 points in the women’s competition.
Adhiban used the Bogo-Indian defence against GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh and won his opponent’s Queen on the 44th move to force resignation five moves later.
Kasimjanov played black against the English Opening of GM Rinat Jumabayev of Kazakhstan and embarked on a King hunt to expose his opponent’s monarch and threaten mate or loss of material in 40 moves to score the full point.
Yu Yangyi used the Sicilian Defence against GM S.P. Sethuraman of India and made a temporary Knight sacrifice on the 25th move and followed through with a two Bishop attack with Rook on the lower ranks to force resignation on the 34th move.
Half a point behind the lead pack are two Chinese GMs, top seed Bu Xiangzhi and Ni Hua. In an Open Catalan game, Bu transposed to a Rook and Pawn endgame against GM Mohammad Al Sayed of Qatar and was about to promote his pawn when the Qatari resigned on the 43rd move. Ni Hua needed only 30 moves to crush the Gruenfeld defence of GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran.
Local hero GM Saleh Abdul Rahman Salem and eight other players trail behind at 4 points each. The top five players qualify to the World Cup, while only the champion of the women’s division will qualify to the Women’s World Cup.
