BIEL (Switzerland), Aug 3:
Young Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin held tournament leader Gata Kamsky to a draw in the sixth and penultimate round of the classical event in the Grandmaster Triathlon being played as part of the Biel Chess Festival here today.
The 42-move draw in a Ruy Lopez game put Kamsky on 31 points and in clear lead with one round to be played.
The 17-year old Indian GM improved to 27 points and is slated to face France’s Maxime Lagarde in the final round on Wednesday.
Sarin had performed impressively in the Rapid section, racking up eight victories and three draws.
The Grandmaster Triathlon also included Rapid and Blitz events.
In the Master Tournament, part of the Biel Chess Festival, Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi joined compatriot Karthikeyan Murali at the top after the eighth round with 6.5 points.
The 22-year-old Karthikeyan Murali (Elo 2606) and Tamas Banusz (Hungary) settled for a draw in 47 moves while Erigaisi outclassed Woman Grandmaster R Vaishali to move to 6.5 points.
Ukraine GM Pavel Eljanov slipped to the third position after managing half a point from his eighth round match against Maksim Chigaev (Russia)
Teen prodigies R Praggnanandhaa (5 points) and D Gukesh endured mixed fortunes with the former going down to the top-seed Salem A R Saleh (UAE) and the latter scoring over the experienced Surya Shekhar Ganguly to take his tally to six points. (PTI)
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