Grebnev reclaims solo leadership with two rounds to go in Dubai chess tourney

Grandmaster (GM) Aleksey Grebnev of Russia once again distanced himself from the field with a hard-fought win against International Master (IM) S. Rohith Krishna of India in Monday night’s seventh round of the 25th Dubai Open Chess Tournament at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.

Grebnev captalised on a series of blunders by Krishna in what was otherwise an equal position to dispose of his erstwhile co-leader and take the tournament lead with six points. The 18-year-old Russian is trailed closely by two other teenage grandmasters three years his junior - his compatriot Ivan Zemlyanskii and Sina Movahed of Iran, who both have 5.5 points.

Movahed, who turned 15 last week during the tournament’s opening day, and Zemlyanskii, two months shy of his 15th birthday in August, scored the biggest scalps of the round after defeating defending champion GM Mahammad Muradli and top-seed GM Nihal Sarin, respectively.

Movahed inflicted Muradli’s second consecutive loss in the tournament. Muradli was on the backpedal right out of the opening as Movahed sacrificed a pawn to weaken the Azerbaijani’s kingside defence. Movahed, however, could not find the precise continuation to convert his advantage until a greedy pawn grab by Muradli on the 39th move allowed the Iranian to launch an overwhelming attack with all his pieces contributing to the onslaught. Muradli resigned three moves later.

After being held by two consecutive draws, Nihal, playing the black pieces, once again took big risks to play for a win. The ploy initially worked as he started to create weaknesses around white’s kingside, but the Indian failed to find the most accurate way to sustain the offensive, allowing Zemlyanskii to force an exchange of queens that neutralised the attack and left him a pawn up in the endgame.

Grebnev will have the black pieces as he tries to protect his lead when he faces Movahed in the next round.

In Category B, Fide Master (FM) Mahdi Nikookar of Iran ended his perfect run after a draw with Sri Lanka’s Pesandu Rashmitha Liyanage in the seventh round. Nikookar, however, remains the solo leader with 6.5 points, followed by Liyanage and Indian Candidate Master (CM) Alankar Sawai Vandan with six points each. Vandan defeated Armenia’s Davit Baghdasaryan.

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.

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, International Master (IM) S Rohith Krishna of India defeated defending champion GM Mahammad Muradli to rise to the top of the standings in a tie with Grandmaster (GM) Aleksey Grebnev after Sunday night’s sixth round.

Grebnev drew with top-seed GM Nihal Sarin on the first board, allowing Krishna to join him for the lead with five points each. Nihal remains in joint second place with 4.5 points, alongside his compatriot GM Bharath Subramaniyam, GM Zemlyanskii, GM Shant Sargsyan, and GM Movahed.

Muradli sacrificed a pawn on move six in a delayed Benko Gambit and a few moves later the game reached a position that was previously seen in a game between world number two Hikaru Nakamura and former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov. Muradli, however, deviated on move 13, a questionable decision that allowed Krishna to gain time to reinforce his central pawns and plant an uncontested knight on the c4-square, the white knight’s ideal outpost in the Benko Gambit.