Sandipan beats Jobav, moves into joint-lead

Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda continued on his giant-killing spree and stunned top seed Baadur Jobava to jump into the joint-lead at the end of the sixth round of the Fujairah International Open chess tournament in Fujaira, UAE, on Monday.

After beating Ni Hua of China in the previous round, Sandipan was in his elements yet again and was a treat to watch after Jobava went berserk with his planning in the game.

Sandipan joined four other overnight leaders in the lead following draws on the top boards.

Etienne Bacrot of France signed peace with Sergey Fedorchuk of Ukraine while Surya Shekhar Ganguly achieved the same result against Alexander Moiseenko of Ukraine.

With just three rounds remaining in the US $50,500 prize-money tournament, all five leaders have 4.5 points each and they are now followed by a group of eight players who are on four points each.

Abhijeet Gupta, the other fancied Indian, yet again misplayed a better position and had to settle for another draw in the tournament against Jaan Ehlvest of the United States.

With just 3.5 points in his bag for a shared 14th place, Gupta needs to find his winning touch before it is too late.

Apart from Gupta, Tejas Bakre and S Satyapragyan are the other Indians with 3.5 points and a chance to catch up in the last few rounds.

The GM norm aspirations of V Saravanan suffered a setback after he lost to Constantin Lupulescu of Romania in the sixth round.

Important and Indian results after round 6 (Indians unless stated): Etienne Bacrot (FRA, 4.5) drew with Sergey Fedorchuk (UKR, 4.5); Alexander Moiseenko (UKR, 4.5) drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4.5); Sandipan Chanda (4.5) beat Baadur Jobava (GEO, 3.5); Ma Qun (CHN, 4) drew with Le Quang Liem (VIE, 4); Yuriy Kryvoruchko (UKR, 4) drew with Ivan Saric (CRO, 4); Jaan Ehlvest (USA, 3.5) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (3.5); Mikheil Mchedlishvili (GEO, 4) beat Gadir Guseinov (AZE, 3); S Satyapragyan (3.5) drew with Mircea-Emilian Parligras (ROU, 3.5); Tejas Bakre (3.5) drew with Safarli Eltaj (AZE, 3.5); Constantin Lupulescu (ROU, 4) beat V Saravanan (3); Ankit Rajpara (3) lost to Zaven Andriasian (ARM, 3.5); Sagar Shah (2.5) lost to Ni Hua (CHN, 3.5); Tigran Petrosian (ARM, 3.5) beat Ashwin Jayaram (2.5); Debashis Das (3) drew with A R Saleh Salem (UAE, 3); Yuri Solodovnichenko (UKR, 2.5) drew with Aditya Udeshi (2.5); Arjun Bharat (2) lost to Vishnu Prasanna (3); Akshat Khamparia (2) drew with Nelson Mariano (PHI, 2); Anurag Mhamal (1.5) lost to Vita Chulivska (UKR, 2.5).