Adhiban In Shared Second Spot

Adhiban In Shared Second Spot
By Arvind Aaron

Seed No.19 Kamil Dragun of Poland moved into sole lead in the 23rd Abu Dhabi Masters Tournament in the UAE on August 27, 2016.

Former Indian champion B Adhiban who led the 137-player nine round Swiss with 4.5/5 slipped with two draws allowing Kamil Dragun to sail into lead is still undefeated on 5.5 sharing the second spot with others.

Indians after round seven: GM Vishnu Prasanna, GM Swapnil Dhopade, GM Deep Sengupta, GM M.R. Lalith Babu, IM Aryan Chopra, IM Abhimanyu Puranik, IM M.S. Thejkumar, IM C.R.G. Krishna, IM Abhishek Kelkar, M.N. Shaikh 4.5/7.

This event is organised from August 21-29, by the Abu Dhabi Chess and Culture Club in Dusit Thani Hotel, in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The tournament director is IO Al Khouri Ismaeil and the chief arbiter is IA Saeed Al Khouri.

Among the 137 players, 56 are from India, 11 are from Russia and seven are from hosts UAE, Egypt and Ukraine. The event has a wide representation of players from 32 nations.

The top three seeds are Dmitry Andreikin (Rus), Wang Hao (Chn) and B Adhiban (Ind). Two rounds remain to be played. It is an important event before the Baku Olympiad coming up next month.

The first prize in the Masters Tournament is USD 13,000. Second and third are USD 7,500 and 5,500.