Young Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri put up a fine display of counter-attack and held top seed Wang Hao of China to a creditable draw in the second round of Abu Dhabi Masters, here.
Playing the white side of a Benoni defense, Suri was clinical in his approach and got a good position when the middle game surfaced. The Chinese Grandmaster found his way out with a positional piece sacrifice and in the end it was a draw through repetition.
Highest-rated Indian Abhijeet Gupta was held to a draw by compatriot Diptayan Ghosh who held on to his own with black pieces. The Reti Opening by Gupta did not yield much advantage and even though the former world junior champion tried hard, Ghosh was always armed with his defense.
Gupta finally gave two pieces for a rook and Ghosh managed a perfect blockade to force the draw.
As many as 13 players emerged as joint leaders on two points from as many games and the list includes three Indian Grandmasters in Vidit Gujrathi, G N Gopal and M R Lalith Babu. As many as 18 players including Gupta, Suri and Wang Hao remain on the heels of the leader a half point behind.
Among the leaders Vidit Gujrathi made short work of Tamas Meszaros of Hungary while Gopal defeated Mitra Hejazipour of Iran. M R Lalith Babu scored over Eesha Karavade to maintain a clean slate.
It turned out to be another good day for Indians generally. M Shyam Sundar did well to hold Egyptian Grandmaster Amin Baseem while Murali Karthikeyan and P Shyam Nikil made a stride forward for their Grandmaster norms by holding Armenian duo of Arman Pashikian and Tigran Petrosian respectively.
After a faulty start that cost him a winning game in the first round, Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly came roaring back to form at the expense of Siva Mahadevan.
