GM Salem A.R. Saleh of the UAE beat GM Amin Bassem of Egypt to surge into the lead with four others after five rounds of the Abu Dhabi Chess Masters at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
In a Ruy Lopez game, Salem penetrated with his Rook on the seventh rank on the 22nd move and trapped the Egyptian’s king in the center to threaten inevitable mate on the 41st move. The win gave Salem 4.5 points out of 5 rounds to share the lead with GMs Wang Hao of China, Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia, Anton Korobov of Ukraine and Daniil Dubov of Russia.
GM Salem A.R. Saleh of the UAE (left) beat GM Amin Bassem of Egypt
Wang crushed the King’s Indian defense of Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo in 37 moves of a Rook and pawn endgame. Pantsulaia used the Reti opening to beat GM Nigel Short of England in 40 moves. Korobov smashed the Slav defense of GM Ahmed Adly of Egypt with a mating net in only 29 moves. Dobov, erstwhile solo leader, was held to a draw by Vladimir Fedoseev in 30 moves of a Queen’s Gambit.
Wang Hao beat Maghsoodloo Parham
Levan Pantsulaia beat Nigel Short
Anton Korobov beat Ahmed Adly
Fedoseev trails with 4 points together with 5 others, namely GMs S.L. Narayanan of India, Richard Rapport of Hungary, Martyn Kravtsiv of Ukarine, Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia and Daniele Vocaturo of Italy.
In the Open division of 236 players, Datar Soham of India and Mohammad Al Saleh of Syria are tied for the lead with 5 points in as many rounds. In the juniors for under-16 players, I.R.Sirhan and V. Pranav of India and Kazybek Umbetov of Kazakhstan share the lead with perfect 5 point slates.
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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