Gupta, Grover score facile victories in Dubai

DUBAI: Indian Grandmasters Abhijeet Gupta and Sahaj Grover scored facile victories against Vahe Baghdasaryan of Armenia and Zeinab Mamedjarova of Azerbaijan respectively in the second round of Dubai International open chess tournament here on Wednesday.
Playing the black side of a French defense, Gupta capitalized on his superior opening knowledge to down Baghdasaryan who could not quite get into the game.The Indian stood slightly better after the middle game surfaced and did not let go of his slight advantage to score his second victory on the trot in the 50000 USD prize money tournament.
Grover, on the other hand, was in his elements in tackling Mamedjarova, the famous sister of Shakhriyar Mamedjarov who is a member of elite chess circles.
Playing white, Grover opened with the king pawn and launched a king side offense at the first opportunity to find his opponent off balance. After sacrificing a piece, it was a difficult task to find the right defense and Mamedjarova lost her queen for little counter play. Grover did the rest with precise technique.
N R Vignesh caused a major upset in the tournament accounting for Grandmaster Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia. The Indian came up with his best performance playing white.
Vignesh's brother Visaskh held former world junior champion Alexander Ipatop of Turkey to a draw. Abhishek Kelkar was the other Indian to make merry on the second day defeating Grandmaster Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia.
There are seven rounds still remaining in the tournament that carries a winner's purse of 12000 USD. In the third round, Grover is pitted against second seed Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia while Gupta will test his skills against Iran's Pouya Idani, a former under-18 world champion.
Important and Indian Results Round 2 (Indians unless specified): David Howell (Eng, 2) beat Sayantan Das (1); Imed Abdelnabbi (Egy, 1) lost to Vladimir Fedoseev (Rus, 2); Igor Kovalenko (Lat, 1.5) drew with Amirreza Pourramezanali (Iri, 1.5); Manuel Petrosyan (Arm, 1.5) drew with Tigran Petrosian (Arm, 1.5); K Rathnakaran (1) lost to Sergei Zhigalko (Blr, 2); Sundararajan Kidambi (1.5) drew with Ivan Ivanisevic (Srb, 1.5); Eesha Karavade (1.5) drew with Eduardo Iturrizaga (Ven, 1.5); Vahe Baghdasaryan (Arm, 1) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (2); Milos Perunovic (Srb, 1) lost to Nr Vignesh (2); Aleksandr Rakhmanov (Rus, 1) lost to Abhishek Kelkar (2); Nr Visakh (1.5) drew with Alexander Ipatov (Tur, 1.5); S Vijayalakshmi (1) lost to Sergey Volkov (Rus, 2); Peter Prohaszka (Hun, 1.5) drew with Mehar Chinna Reddy (1.5); Rakesh Kulkarni (2) w/o) Aleksandr Shimanov (RUs, 1); Sameer Kathmale (1) lost to Gaioz Nigalidze (Geo, 2); Sahaj Grover (2) beat Zeinab Mamedjarova (Aze, 1); Nino Maisuradze (Geo, 2) beat S Arun Prasad (1); Murali Karthikeyan (2) beat Tabada Jobannie (Phi, 1); Wenzel Birger (Ger, 1) lost to Sagar Shah (2); Pascua Haridas (Phi, 2) beat Harikrishnan Samyuktha (1); R R Laxman (1.5) beat Nico Georgiadis (Sui, 0.5); Ahmad Al Romaithi (Jor, 0) lost to Aniruddha Deshpande (1); Mohamed Marshool (Uae, 0) lost to Siva Mahadevan (1).