Anton Korobov of Ukraine beat second seed Richard Rapport of Hungary to grab solo lead after the penultimate round of the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival Masters championship at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
Korobov, two time Ukraine champion and 2010 Abu Dhabi Masters champion, crushed the Queen’s Indian defense of Rapport. The Ukrainian sacrificed a pawn on the 26th move and forced an exchange of Queens to transpose to a favorable endgame. Unable to prevent pawn promotion, Rapport resigned on the 54th move. The win gave Korobov 7 points out of 8 rounds in the race for the top prize of $13,000.
GMs Saleh A.R. Salem of the UAE and Daniil Dubov of Russia drew in 20 moves of a Gruenfeld Defense to share second slot at 6.5 points together with GMs Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia and GM Ivan Cheparinov of Georgia.
Sargissian smashed the English Opening of GM Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran in a marathon 74 moves with a Rook and pawn endgame. Cheparinov destroyed the Sicilian defense of GM Murali Karthikeyan of India in 56 moves with a minor piece endgame.
In the Open division of 236 players, three players maintained their lead with 7 points each after the penultimate 8th round, namely Sameer Loay of Jordan, Jemal Overzdurdiyeva of Turkmenistan and Kazybek Umbetov of Kazakhstan. In the juniors for under-16 players, IM D. Gubesh of India won with a final score of 8 points out of 9 rounds.
Over $61,000 in cash prizes are at stake in the tournament organized by the Abu Dhabi Chess Club and the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation under the patronage of H.H Sheikh Nahyan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Sport Council .
A strong field of 47 grandmasters, 30 International Masters, 7 Woman Grandmasters, 6 Woman International Masters, 20 FIDE Masters and 2 Woman FIDE Masters in a record field of 158 players from 32 countries are competing in the Masters event. The Festival consists of an elite Masters championship for players rated above 2100, an Open tournament for those rated below 2100 and a Junior championship for players under 16 years of age.
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