Rathnakaran beats Kovchan to jump to joint ninth

International Master K Rathnakaran continued with his fine form as he defeated Grandmaster Alexander Kovchan of Ukraine to jump to joint ninth spot after the end of the sixth round of Dubai International Open chess tournament here today.
After winning the important game today with black pieces, Rathnakaran emerged as the best performing Indian in the fray thus far and moved to 4.5 points out of a possible six games.
Rathnakaran played his pet French defense with black pieces and caught Kovchan napping in a better position. The Indian had sacrificed a piece for two pawns in the middle game and was rewarded for his brave move when Kovchan lost track and lost two pieces in tandem.

Meanwhile, draws were the order of the day at the top of the table as top seed David Howell of England signed peace with American counterpart Alexander Shabalov, French Andrei Istratescu drew with Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia while Igor Kovalenko (4.5) of Latvia achieved the same result against Nils Grandeloius of Sweden.
As a result, it's now an eight-way lead at the top with the five previous leaders are now joined by Solak Dragun of Turkey, Daniele Vocaturo of Italy and Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine.
With three rounds still remaining in the 50000 USD prize money tournament, Rathnakaran is the only Indian sharing the ninth spot and a good finish from here can help the Indian reap high returns.

The highest ranked Indian, Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta could not find his rhythm yet again as he was held to a draw by compatriot Sameer Kathmale. Up against an Alapin opening, Gupta faced stiff resistance from Kathmale and even stood worse at one point in the game. However, exchanges at regular intervals restored the parity and the draw was another good result for Kathmale. Both Gupta and Kathmale have 3.5 points each.