Tukhaev joins Deepan, Laxman, Rozum in lead

India's Deepan Chakkravarthy and R R Laxman (six points each) shared the lead with GMs Adam Tukaev (Ukraine) and Ivan Rozum (Russia) after the seventh round of the 10th Chennai Open International Grandmaster Chess tournament here today.

Tukhaev is the defending champion and appears to be peaking at the right time, drawing with Chakkravarthy in the sixth round after beating K Rathnakaran in the earlier game.

Half a point behind the leaders are GMs Atalik Suat (Turkey), Sergei Tiviakov (the Netherlands), Vitaly Sivuk (Ukraine), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan) along with S Nitin, P Karthikeyan, Karthik Venkataraman, Erigaisi Arjun, Pranav V, Sidhant Mohapatra, AL Muthaiah, N R Visakh (all India).
 

Earlier, top seed GM Gareyev Timur of USA ended his two-round slump, scoring over local boy Rajarishi Karthi to climb to five points, with three games on hand.

Woman FIDE Master and World Under-12 champion Divya Deshmukh, who secured her maiden GM scalp, went down in a hard fought battle to Muhammad Khusenkhojaev of Tajikstan today.

A good display in the remaining three rounds, will give the Maharashtra girl a shot at a WIM norm.

Important results (Round 7) (Indians unless specified): J Deepan Chakkravarthy (6) drew with Adam Tukhaev (Ukr) 6, Ivan Rozum (Rus) 6 bt Karthik Venkataraman (5.5), Sergei Tiviakov (Ned) 5.5 drew with Erigaisi Arjun (5.5), Atalik Suat (Tur) 5.5 drew with V Pranav (5.5).

Sidhant Mohapatra (5.5) drew with Roeland Pruijssers (Ned) 5.5, AL Muthaiah (5.5) drew with N R Visakh (5.5), RR Laxman (6) bt Ravi Gopal Hegde 5), Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (5) drew with Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr) 5, Vitaly Sivuk (Ukr) 5.5 bt C Praveen Kumar (4.5).

P Karthikeyan (5.5) bt P Maheswaran (4.5), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) 5.5 bt Ajay Karthikeyan (4.5), S Nitin (5.5) bt Ram S Krishnan (4.5), Rajarishi Karthi (4.5) lost to Timur Gareyev (US) 5.

Round 6: Karthik Venkataraman (5.5) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (5.5), Visakh (5) drew with Tiviakov (5), Tukhaev (5.5) bt K Rathnakaran (4.5) Pruijssers (5) drew with Laxman (5), Hegde (5) drew with Sivuk (4.5).

Gareyev (4) lost to Sidhant Mohapatra (5), Hafiz Arif Abdul (INA) (4) lost to Rozum (5), Tran Tuan Minh (VIE) 4 lost to AL Muthaiah (5), Arjun Tiwari (4.5) drew with Llaneza Vega Marcos (SPA) (4.5).