GM Saleh A. R. Salem of the UAE beat top seed GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam to climb back to a share of the lead with two others in the homestretch of the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival Masters championship at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
Salem crushed the Queen’s Indian defense of the Vietnamese with a Knight sacrifice on the 26th move. The Emirati capitalized on the black square weakness and threatened inevitable mate to force resignation on the 39th move. The win gave Salem 6 points out of 7 rounds together with GMs Daniil Dubov of Russia and Anton Korobov of Ukrraine who drew with each other in 18 moves of a Closed Catalan.
Six grandmasters follow with 5.5 points each in the race for the top prize of $13,000, namely Murali Karthikeyan and Arvindh Chithambaram of India, second seed Richard Rapport of Hungary, Ivan Cheparinov of Georgia, Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia and Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran.
Karthikeyan smashed the Sicilian Defense of GM Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia in 53 moves of a Rook and pawn endgame. Chitambaram needed a marathon 72 moves of a Scotch Game to beat Martyn Kravtsiv of Ukraine. Rapport beat GM Amin Tabatabaei of Iran in 22 moves of a Guioco Piano. Cheparinov used the Gruenfeld Defense to beat GM Daniele Vocaturo of Iraly in 52 moves. Sargissian punished the irregular opening of GM Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia in 51 moves. Maghsoodloo used the Queen’s Gambit Declined to beat GM S.L. Narayanan of India in 52 moves.
In the Open division of 236 players, five players maintained their lead with 6 points each after 7 rounds, namely Sameer Loay of Jordan, Jemal Overzdurdiyeva of Turkmenistan, Datar Sohan of India, Mohammad Al Saleh of Syria and Kazybek Umbetov of Kazakhstan. In the juniors for under-16 players, IM D. Gubesh of India grabbed solo lead with 7.5 points out of 8 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.