Delhi Open Chess: Abhijeet Gupta outplays Gharibyan in time crunch to claim sole lead
India's Abhijeet Gupta surged to the sole lead at the 21st Delhi International Chess Open after defeating Armenia's Mamikon Gharibyan in the seventh round on Wednesday.
The sixth seed Gupta employed a free-flowing Ragozin Defense in their Queen's Gambit Declined game, gaining a significant time advantage early on with white pieces. By the 21st move, Gupta had 35 minutes remaining compared to Gharibyan's 23 minutes. The Indian grandmaster utilised both his time advantage and space on the board to pressure his opponent. By the 36th move, Gharibyan was down to just 21 seconds on his clock. Despite a stubborn defence, Gharibyan resigned on the 71st move after Gupta cornered his king.
With this win, Gupta moved to 6.5 points after eight rounds. He is now followed by eight players tied for second place at 6.0 points, including top seed SL Narayanan and Georgia's Levan Pantsulaia, the highest-rated overseas player. Among the top five boards, only one other match produced a decisive result, with Swedish GM Vitaly Sivuk defeating India's untitled Alekhya Mukhopadhyay while playing white.
Gupta will take on another Armenian, Manuel Petrosyan, in the eighth round.
The Delhi Open is India's biggest chess event, featuring nearly 2,500 players from more than 20 countries. The prize pool of the event is 1.21 crore.
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