Masoud pulls ahead

6 years ago

New Delhi (14 Jan 19) :- Twenty-two years old Iranian Grandmaster Mosadeghpour Masoud pulled ahead of the field with a finely crafted victory over Tran Tuan Minh of Vietnam in the eighth round of 17th Delhi International Grandmasters Tournament underway here on Monday.

Playing with white pieces in Sicilian Najdorf Bg5 variation which lasted 33 moves, Masoud, rated 2517 got better of Grandmaster Tran Tuan Minh, rated 2541. Tran obtained a small advantage after making exchange sacrifice of his rook for knight on the 23rd move. Later he landed in a piece-down position, prompting him to resign.

With his sixth victory in eight games, Masoud took his tally to a whopping 7 points out of a possible eight and emerged as sole leader with a half-point lead over nearest rivals. Just two rounds are remaining in this Rs. 35 Lakhs prize money tournament.

Among other important games of the day, Indian Grandmasters Debashis Das and Diptayan Ghosh played out a quick draw to inch up to 6.5 points while Grandmasters Erigaisi Arjun and Stupak Kirill signed peace treaty after a tense struggle to also reach 6.5 points.

Seven players are closely trailing behind the leader.

Category ‘C’ tournament which boasts participation of more than 1500 players came to the half-way stage with 56 players scoring 4 points out of 4 rounds. Six more rounds are remaining in this 33 lakhs prize money event. Total prize of the 17th Delhi International Grandmasters Tournament is One Crore One Lakh Rupees.

Pairings

Round 9 on 2019/01/15 at 10:00 hrs

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	3	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	2597	6½		7	GM	Mosadeghpour Masoud	2517	19
2	15	GM	Stupak Kirill	2542	6½		6½	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2581	9
3	17	GM	Debashis Das	2538	6½		6½	GM	Narayanan.S.L	2575	10
4	24	IM	Visakh N R	2486	6½		6½	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2544	13
5	29	IM	Vignesh N R	2461	6		6	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2621	1
6	6	GM	Popov Ivan	2588	6		6	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2487	23
7	27	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2470	6		6	GM	Paichadze Luka	2583	7
8	12	GM	Erigaisi Arjun	2548	6		6	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2437	37
9	16	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2541	6		6		Sammed Jaykumar Shete	2395	45
10	18	GM	Ghaem Maghami Ehsan	2533	6		6		Pranav V	2318	63
11	77	GM	Ziatdinov Raset	2248	6		6	GM	Movsziszian Karen	2514	21
12	22	IM	Gukesh D	2497	6		6	IM	Sharma Dinesh K.	2303	67
13	81	IM	Praveen Kumar C	2233	6		5½	IM	Gajek Radoslaw	2481	25
14	56	IM	Saravana Krishnan P.	2346	5½		5½	GM	Predke Alexandr	2620	2
15	58	IM	Kulkarni Vikramaditya	2345	5½		5½	GM	Rozum Ivan	2589	5
16	8	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	2582	5½		5½		Koustav Chatterjee	2346	57
17	11	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2570	5½		5½	CM	Rohith Krishna S	2382	48
18	14	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2543	5½		5½	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2373	49
19	20	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2515	5½		5½	IM	Sidhant Mohapatra	2344	59
20	26	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2481	5½		5½	IM	Siva Mahadevan	2333	61