Abhijeet Gupta stays sole leader at Pune GM chess tournament

Pune, Jul 5 (PTI) Top seed Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta strengthened his grip on the Pune International Grandmaster Round Robin Chess Tournament with a clinical victory over Belarus’ Aleksej Alexandrov in the sixth round here on Sunday.

The Indian GM remained the sole leader with five points from six rounds after four of the five matches ended decisively.

Playing with the white pieces, Gupta employed the London System and gradually built up pressure after gaining a slight advantage in the opening.

Alexandrov’s slow play in the middlegame allowed Gupta to launch a decisive kingside attack, winning material before converting his advantage into a comfortable victory.

Indian International Masters Aswath S and Kushagra Mohan occupied the second and third

spots respectively with four points each.

Kushagra scored an important win over USA’s Vaidyanathan Kannan, while Aswath was held to a draw by FIDE Master Advik Agrawal.

Elsewhere, Belarus’ Alexei Fedorov defeated India’s Nitish Belurkar, while Sri Lanka’s L. M. S. T. De Silva got the better of India’s Akshay Borgaonkar.

With three rounds remaining, both Aswath and Kushagra need to win all their remaining games to secure Grandmaster norms.

In the race for International Master norm, Advik remained in contention with three points, while Vaidyanathan stayed in the hunt with 2.5 points.

Results (Round 6): Kushagra Mohan bt Vaidyanathan Kannan; L.M.S.T. De Silva bt Akshay Borgaonkar; Abhijeet Gupta bt Aleksej Alexandrov; Aswath S drew with Advik Agrawal; Alexei Fedorov bt Nitish Belurkar. PTI KHS KHS PDS