Unbeaten Grebnev goes on top with four victories and one draw

Grandmaster (GM) Aleksey Grebnev grabbed the pole position after emerging as the lone winner among the erstwhile co-leaders in Saturday night’s fifth round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.

The 18-year-old Russian talent played the Sicilian Defence and then accepted and ultimately refuted a rare pawn gambit line unleashed by the Indian GM Bharath Subramaniyam to pick up his fourth win against a lone draw and no losses.

Subramaniyam initially succeeded in keeping Grebnev’s king stuck in the centre, but the Indian lost his way in the complications when he allowed a queen trade that left him a pawn down in the endgame - and where the Russian’s previously vulnerable king became an active asset. Grebnev was flawless from thereon, marching his king up the board to support his passed pawn on the f-file as Subramaniyam could do little to stop its advance.

Grebnev now has 4.5 points, half a point ahead of five players who are in joint second place, including defending champion GM Mahammad Muradli of Azerbaijan and Indian top-seed GM Nihal Sarin, who drew their match on the first board, and International Master Rohith Krishna of India, who also drew his game against Russia’s GM Ivan Zemlyanskii.

GM Shant Sargsyan of Armenia and Iranian prodigy GM Sina Movahed, who celebrated his 15th birthday during the tournament’s first round on May 27th, moved up to joint second place with wins over Indian players IM A. Ra Harikrishnan and GM Prraneeth Vuppala, respectively.

Grebnev will try to protect his lead against the tournament favourite Sarin in the sixth round’s top-board match-up on Sunday.

In Category B, Iran’s Fide Master (FM) Mahdi Nikookar defeated India’s Candidate Master (CM) Alankar Sawai Vandan to likewise claim the sole leadership with a perfect five points. CM Allayar Shirliyev of Turkmenistan and Sri Lanka’s Pesandu Rashmitha Liyanage trail at second place with 4.5 each after wins over India’s Hemant Agarwal Mukund and IM Anastasios Pavlidis of Greece, respectively. Nikookar will have the white pieces as he tries to maintain his unbeaten streak when he faces Shirliyev in the sixth round.

The tournament follows a 9-round Swiss system with a 90-minute time control plus a 30-second increment per move. Games are played every day from 5pm, except the final round on June 4, which starts at 10am. The awarding ceremony is on June 5.

The tournament offers a prize pool of $52,000 to be handed out to the winners of both categories. Category A, contested by players with a rating over 2300, has a total prize fund of $39,500 with $12,000 going to the champion, while Category B, open to players rated below 2300, offers $12,500 in total prizes and $2,000 awarded to the champion.

Special prizes will also be distributed to top performers among rating categories, unrated, youth, women, and UAE players.

International Arbiter Majed Al Abdooli of the UAE spearheads the tournament’s international team of arbiters who will manage and oversee the competition.

Chess fans from around the world can watch the Category A games live on the club’s website as well as chess platforms such as lichess.org and chess.com.

Earlier, top-seed Grandmaster (GM) Nihal Sarin scored an emphatic victory to bounce back into the lead after erstwhile co-leaders GM Mahammad Muradli and GM Aleksey Grebnev agreed to a quick, uneventful draw in Friday night’s fourth round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.

The three grandmasters have 3.5 points each and are joined in a five-way tie at the top by Indian players IM Rohith Krishna and GM Bharath Subramaniyam.

Sarin, who was held to a draw by Krishna in the third round, repulsed a daring attack against his king by Israel’s GM Yair Parkhov in securing the win. The Indian top-seed maintained a solid grip of the position and was poised to win material when Parkhov launched a kingside offensive punctuated by a rook sacrifice. Sarin did not have problems diffusing the attack and converting into an endgame where he was a piece up.