Barua held, but keeps lead

Commonwealth champion Dibyendu Barua's winning streak was halted by International Master Tahir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan in the seventh round of the Tata International Open Chess tournament in Jamshedpur on Friday.

Barua, who had scored six victories on the trot prior to the seventh round, however still remains in sole lead despite the draw. He took his tally to 6.5 points.

Following him half a point behind are Grandmasters Alexander Fominyh of Russia, Marat Dzhumaev of
Uzbekistan and Sergei Ovsejevitsch of Ukraine who all have six points each in their kitty.

With four rounds remaining, a pack of nine players, including GMs Pendyala Harikrishna, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh, are also in contention for honours in this Rs 3,50,000 prize-money tournament.

Barua was apprently happy after having achieved an easy draw with black pieces against Vakhidov, who has two Grandmaster norms under his belt and is looking for his final norm here.

The Uzbekistan IM now has an excellent chance for the norm but his average rating needs to shoot up.

It was a Semi Slav defence where Vakhidov was tempted to try a tested variation that has a lot of hidden tactics. However, the Indian star was well armed and steered the game to a level position without much ado. The draw was agreed to right out of the opening.

On the second board, Dzhumaev continued with his uncompromising play and defeated top seed Dmitry Svetushkin of Moldova in a fine attacking game. It was Dzhumaev's second victory against Svetushkin in under 10 days, the earlier one coming in the penultimate round of the Parsvnath International tournament at New Delhi.

Svetushkin's opening choice as black was the Caro Kann and Dzhumaev launched an offence with Advance variation right from the word go. Falling in trouble in the centre, Svetushkin had to part with two minor pieces against a rook and the rest proved a matter of routine technique.

Harikrishna missed out an important opportunity when he let GM-in-waiting R B Ramesh off the hook. The position was slightly inferior for Ramesh in the queen and minor pieces endgame arising out of an irregular opening, and he sacrificed a knight to complicate matters.

Harikrishna, who felt he was within sniffing distance of a win, missed out on some tactical moves and had to be satisfied with half a point.

Fominyh and Ovsejevitsch played fine positional games to beat IM Sunderrajan Kidambi and GM Ziaur Rahaman of Bangladesh respectively.

Important results: Round 7 (Indians unless specified): Tahir Vakhidov (5.5, Uzb) drew Dibyendu Barua (6.5); Marat Dzhumaev (6, Uzb) beat Dmitry Svetushkin (5, Mda); P Harikrishna (5.5) drew R B Ramesh (5.5); Alexander Fominyh (6, Rus) beat S R Kidambi (5); Sergei Ovsejevitsch (6, Ukr) beat Ziaur Rahman (5, Ban); Saidali Iuldashev (5.5, Uzb) beat V Saravanan (5); Somak Palit (4.5) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (5.5); Niaz Murshed (5.5, Ban) beat S Arun Prasad (4.5); K Ratnakaran (5.5) beat Suvrajit Saha (4.5); S Poobesh Anand (4.5) lost to Deep Sengupta (5.5); K Visweswaran (5) drew Arghyadip Das (5); Varugeese Koshy (5) drew R Preetham Sharma (5); R R Laxman (4.5) lost to Valay Parikh (5.5); Gurpreet Pal Singh (5) drew Amith Pal Singh (5); Jayant Gokhale (4.5) drew Abhijit Kunte (4.5); D P Singh (4) lost to S Roy Chowdhury (5).