Viswanathan Anand scored his third victory and B. Adhiban held top seed Levon Aronian on a mixed day for the Indians in the Isle of Man International chess tournament here on Thursday.
After overnight leader Abhijeet Gupta crashed to a quick loss to Hikaru Nakamura, Anand and S. P. Sethuraman joined the former at 4.5 points to share the seventh spot.
The six leaders, at five points, are Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Nakamura (USA), Rodoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), Wang Hao (China), Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan) and Jeffery Xiong (USA).
Anand, playing white, overpowered a fighting Daniel Fridman in 72 moves after holding a better position throughout their marathon encounter. Adhiban and Aronian reached a rook-and-pawn endgame after 31 moves and agreed to a draw.
Abhijeet resigned in 28 moves when faced with the loss of a bishop against eighth seed Nakamura.
Sethuraman, who next faces Anand, got the better of USA’s Gregory Kaidanov in king-and-pawn endgame after 50 moves. Harsha Bharathakoti pulled off a draw against higher-rated Emil Sutovsky and D. Gukesh stunned former women World champion Alexandra Kosteniuk.
Important sixth-round results involving Indians:
Hikaru Nakamura (US, 5) bt Abhijeet Gupta (4.5); B. Adhiban (4) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 4); Viswanathan Anand (4.5) bt Daniel Fridman (Ger, 3.5); Vidit Gujarati (3.5) lost to Mikhail Antipov (Rus, 4.5); Gawain Jones (Eng, 4.5) bt Nihal Sarin (3.5); Gregory Kaidanov (US, 3.5) lost to S. P. Sethuraman (4.5); Le Quang Liem (Vie, 4) bt Swapnil Dhopade (3.5); Peter Leko (Hun, 4) bt Shyam Sundar (3); Harsha Bharathakoti (3.5) drew with Emil Sutovsky (Isr, 3.5); Darini Pouria (Iri, 3.5) drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (3.5); Simon Williams (Eng, 4) bt Vaibhav Suri (3); Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus, 3) lost to D. Gukesh (4); C. R. G. Krishna (4) bt Servak Krikor (Bra, 3); Seul Georg (Ger, 3.5) drew with R. Praggnanadhaa (3.5).
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