Murali Karthikeyan jumps to sole lead in Abu Dhabi Masters

Murali Karthikeyan remained on course to create history after he defeated Grandmaster Sergey Volkov of Russia in the seventh round of Abu Dhabi Masters chess tournament here today.
The victory took 15-year old Karthikeyan to six points out of a possible seven and it is in fact a complete Indian domination with Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and G N Gopal sharing the second spot a half point behind.
Karthikeyan's performance rating hit another high as it registered 2830 according to FIDE charts. This effectively means that in this tournament, Karthikeyan is giving a performance which is better than the rating of world number two Levon Aronian of Armenia.

The fourth Grandmaster scalp on the trot also effectively sealed what would be Karthikeyan's third and final Grandmaster norm and the Chennai-based is now in line to enter the elite list of Grandmasters.
It was another exciting game by Karthikeyan as he went for a razor-sharp variation in the French defense as white pieces against Volkov. The Russian is a seasoned campaigner and his cold-water treatment to everything hurled at him did not yield desired results for the Indian.
However, with the clock ticking away, Karthikeyan came up with a double piece swap for a rook that only promised some counter-play but the Russian missed the thread of the position and almost immediately blundered. The game lasted 37 moves.

Gujrathi faced the Classical variation in the Nimzo Indian defense as black against Rakhmanov and equalised without much ado as the middle game approached. It was on the 23rd move that Gujrathi shattered white's defences and thereafter the Indian was in full swing in launching a decisive attack. Rakhmanov threw the towel in after 34 moves.
Abhijeet Gupta employed the Sicilian Taimanov and found himself in a slightly worse endgame that was played well by Gopal. Taking his rook to the seventh rank, Gopal exerted pressure and was rewarded for his efforts.