Sports Bureau
A victorious Nihal Sarin joined compatriots Arjun Erigaisi and Raunak Sadhwani (four points each) in the joint second spot after USA’s Ray Robson took the lead at 4.5 points from five rounds of the Abu Dhabi Masters chess tournament in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
Fourth seed Arjun drew with seventh-seeded Jordeen van Foreest, Raunak held fifth seed Amin Baseem while B. Adhiban proved equal to a struggling top seed Wang Hao.
In the only decisive game over the top-10 boards, Robson stopped Nisipeanu in 45 moves.
Nihal won on the 11th board after facing Armenian Artur Davtyan for 62 moves. After a day’s rest, Arjun faces Raunak.
The results (Indians unless specified):
Fifth round: Arjun Erigaisi (4) drew with Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 4); Ray Robson (USA, 4.5) bt Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Ger, 3.5); Amin Bassem (Egy, 3.5) drew with Raunak Sadhwani (4); B. Adhiban (3.5) drew with Wang Hao (Chn, 3.5); Salem Saleh (UAE, 3.5) drew with Leon Mendonca (3.5); Harsha Bharathakoti (3.5) drew with David Anton (Esp, 3.5).
Amin Tabatabaei (Iri, 3.5) drew with P. Iniyan (3.5); Nihal Sarin (4) bt Artur Davtyan (Arm, 3); Aryan Chopra (3.5) drew with Sandipan Chanda (3.5); Arjun Kalyan (3.5) drew with S.P. Sethuraman (3.5); Abhijeet Gupta (3) drew with Mukhiddin Madaminov (Uzb, 3); Siddharth Jagadeesh (2.5) lost to M. Karthikeyan (3.5).
