Sameer Kathmale beats Jaan Ehlvest in Dubai Open

DUBAI (UAE): International Master Sameer Kathmale caused a flutter by defeating highly-regarded Jaan Ehlvest in the fourth round of Dubai International Open chess tournament on Friday.
Playing the white side of a Ruy Lopez, Kathmale punished Estonian-turned American Ehlvest for entering unwarranted complications out of an equal position once the queens got traded.
The Indian was precise in his technique after Ehlvest sacrificed two pieces for a rook and pawn in the endgame and converted his material advantage in to a full point after 58 moves.
The victory took Kathmale to three points out of a possible four and he has emerged as one of the best performing Indians in this $50000 prize money tournament.
Fancied Indian Grandmaster and former champion here, Abhijeet Gupta suffered a shock defeat at the hands of experienced Alexander Shabalov of United States.
Gupta faced a highly original plan by the American in a Sicilian Najdorf game and though he equalised out of the opening, Shabalov had a nagging edge. In the middle game however, Gupta could not handle the attack on his king and eventually lost a piece to go down.
Grandmaster Sahaj Grover enjoyed a winning advantage against compatriot Mehar Chenna Reddy but a blunder in the middle game cost the former dearly as Reddy escaped with a draw. It was on the 34th move out of a Sicilian Rauzer, that Grover missed his chance and drew 10 moves later.
Meanwhile at the top of the tables, top seed David Howell of England maintained a clean slate winning his fourth game on the trot. On the receiving end was Sergey Volkov of Russia who was outdone with the black pieces.
Howell, along with Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine and Nils Grandelius of Sweden share the lead with a clean slate and they followed by a pack of nine players with 3.5 points each.
Indian Grandmasters S Arun Prasad and R R Laxman along with Sayantan Das, Aniruddha Deshpandey and Kathmale are among those who have three points apiece while Gupta and Grover fell behind in the standings on 2.5 points each. There are five rounds still remaining in the tournament that features 39 Grandmasters vying for the first prize of $12000.
Among other Indians in the fray, L N Ram Aravind drew with International Master K Rathnakaran to continue to with his impressive show and reached 2.5 points. Also reaching the same score was GM S Kidambi at the expense of Zeinab Mamedjarova of Azerbaijan and Eesha Karavade who defeated her former Pune city-mate Amruta Mokal.
Important and Indian results round 4 (Indians unless specified): David Howell (Eng, 4) beat Sergey Volkov (Rus, 3); Nils Grandelius (Swe, 4) beat Gaioz Nigalidze (Geo, 3); Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr, 4) beat Gadir Guseinov (Aze, 3); Alexander Shabalov (Usa, 3.5) beat Abhijeet Gupta (2.5); Aleksandr Rakhmanov (Rus, 2.5) drew with Nr Vignesh (2.5); Peter Prohaszka (Hun, 2.5) drew with Abhishek Kelkar (2.5); S Vijayalakshmi (2) lost to Daniele Vocaturo (Ita, 3); Sameer Kathmale (3) beat Jaan Ehlvest (Usa, 2); Sahaj Grover (2.5) drew with Mehar Chinna Reddy (2.5); Nabil Saleh (Uae, 2) lost to S Arun Prasad (3); Murali Karthikeyan (2.5) drew with Rakesh Kulkarni (2.5); Mikhail Kuznetsov (Rus, 2.5) drew with Sagar Shah (2.5); Mohannad Farhan (Jor, 2) lost to Sayantan Das (3); Imed Abdelnabbi (Egy, 2) lost to Aniruddha Deshpande (3); L N Ram Aravind (2.5) drew with K Rathnakaran (2.5); R R Laxman (3) beat Saeed Ishaq (Uae, 2); Sundararajan Kidambi (2.5) beat Zeinab Mamedjarova (Aze, 1.5); Amruta Mokal (1.5) lost to Eesha Karavade (2.5); Nr Visakh (2.5) beat Jobannie Tabada (Phi, 1.5); Akshay V Halagannavar (1) lost to Firouzja Alireza (Iri, 2); Rajarishi Karthi (2) beat Elmejbri Ali (Lib, 1); Faisal Ali (Uae, 1) lost to Siva Mahadevan (2); Vinayak Kulkarni (2) beat Abdulla Al-Hamed (Uae, 1); Al Yaghshi M. Hisham (Syr, 2) beat Harikrishnan Samyuktha (1).