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Chess: Santos maintains solo lead

Dubai - Indian GM Gujrathi beat GM Mikhail Antipov of Russia in 43 moves

International Master Jaime Santos Latasa of Spain continued his Cinderella story as he beat GM Alexander Areschenko of Ukraine in the fifth round and drew with GM Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli of Venezuela in the 6th round to maintain sole lead with 5.5 points in the Dubai Open Chess Championship at the Dubai Chess Club.
Santos, 21, equalised in the opening with black in a Guioco Piano game against Areshenko who launched a fierce attack. The Spaniard defended accurately as he marched his King to the opposite wing and countered by penetrating with his Rook on the open file. In the ensuing Queen and pawn endgame, Areshchenko resigned on the 79th move unable to prevent pawn promotion.



In the afternoon session, Santos exchanged major pieces with Iturrizaga to draw in 32 moves of the Venezuelan's Queen's Indian defense. Although only an International Master in a field of 42 Grandmasters, Santos is alone in first slot, half a point ahead of Iturrizaga and five others, namely GMs Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of India, Mustafa Yilmaz of Turkey, Eltaj Safarli of Azerbaijan, Gawain Jones of England and IM P. Karthikeyan of India.
Gujrathi beat GM Mikhail Antipov of Russia in 43 moves of a King's Indian Defense and drew with Yilmaz in Saturday's two rounds. Yilmaz had earlier beaten GM Alan Pichot of Argentina. Safarli drew with Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia then slaughtered N.R. Vignesh of India in 30 moves of a Ruy Lopez. Jones used the Pirc Defense to beat IM P. Shyaamnikhil of India in 49 moves and smashed the Sicilian Defense of Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia in 44 moves. Karthikeyan won by forfeit over Vladimir Akopian of Armenia and then outmaneuvered the Nimzo-Indian defense of GM Zhang Zhong of Singapore in a marathon 83 moves.
Twenty three players follow with 4.5 points each in the race for $50,000 in cash prizes. Visit chess-results.com for pairings, results and standings.
A strong contingent of 42 Grandmasters and 33 International Masters in a record field of 150 players from 40 countries are competing in the 9 round Swiss. The biggest delegation is from India with 91 players followed by Turkmenistan with 14 players, 9 from the UAE and 8 from Azerbaijan. Among the women, 6 Women Grandmasters and 6 Women International masters and 11 Woman FIDE masters are seeing action.