Girinath lose to higher rated player, Humpy draws in Dubai Chess

Dubai, Apr 30 (UNI) After shocking top seed Jaan Ehlvest in the earlier round, India's International Master PDS Girinath came down to earth losing to eighth seed Azerbaijan Grandmaster Guseinov Gadir of in the penultimate round of ninth Dubai Open Chess Championship.

In the other top board games involving Indians, 11th seed world's second ranked woman Granmaster Koneru Humpy drew with lower rated Georgian Sturua Zurab and Tejas Bakre split points with 10th seed Petrosian Tigran of Armenia.

Another Indian woman Grandmaster Harika Dronavalli and RB Ramesh lost to higher-rated Armenians Anastasian Ashot and Minasian Artashes in the nine-round tournament.

Among Indians who won their eighth round games were Prasanna Rao, Kruttika Nadig, Eesha Karavade, Grover Sahaj, Vikramaditya Kamble, B Adhiban and GN Gopal.

After the penultimate round, Guseinov Gadir and third seed Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia are sharing the top spot with 6.5 points while nine others including second seed Sadvakasov Darmen of Kazakhstan, fourth and fifth seeds Georgians Mchedlishvili Mikheil and Gelashvili Tamaz and sixth seed Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran were at joint second with six points.

Six others including Humpy, Girinath and Gopal are next with 5.5 points followed by 23 others including top seed Jaan Ehlvest of the Netherlands with five points.

Results of matches involving Indians: Guseinov Gadir (AZE) beat PDS Girinath Koneru Humpy drew with Sturua Zurab (GEO) Anastasian Ashot (ARM) beat Harika Dronavalli Minasian Artashes (ARM) beat RB Ramesh Tejas Bakre Tejas drew Petrosian Tigran (ARM) GN Gopal beat Meenakshi Subbaraman Kruttika Nadig beat Tissr Mohamed (MAR) Sundararajan Kidambi drew Salem A R Saleh (UAE) Sitanggang Salor (INA) beat MR Lalith Babu B Adhiban beat Raes Abdulqader (SYR) Eesha Karavade beat Mahdavirad Mehdi (IRI) Vikramaditya Kamble beat Ghader Pour Shayesteh (IRI) SP Sethuraman drew Navabi Shirin (IRI) Golizadeh Asghar (IRI) beat Aditya Udeshi Grover Sahaj beat Sandhu Mario (AUT) Aarthie Ramaswamy drew Hejazipour Mitra (IRI) Narayanan Srinath drew Obeed Ali Asim (SUD) Nyazi Nehad (EGY) beat Shatrughan Jha Prasanna Rao beat Klyszcz Michael (GER) Yahya Mohamed Saleh (UAE) beat Shiven Khosla UNI