Gupta plays out easy draw

Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta missed out on his chances but still got an easy draw against fourth seeded Frenchman Maxime Vachier Lagrave in the fifth round of the Qatar International Open Chess Tournament underway here.

Catching Lagrave in an unfamiliar territory, Gupta was not quite happy that he could not press for more against a member of the elite club and the game quickly fizzled out to a draw leaving the Indian on 3.5 points out of five rounds.

Top seed Anish Giri of Holland made himself hot favourite for the crown after he downed third seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan in another miniature.
After winning the previous round game with white pieces in a mere 18 moves against Mikhailo Oleksienko of Ukraine, Giri yet again turned up with his best and crushed Mamedyarov in just 21 moves with black pieces.


Results: Round 5 (Indians unless specified): Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE) lt to Anish Giri (NED); Nils Grandelius (SWE) bt Pavel Eljanov (UKR); Yuriy Kryvoruchko (UKR) drew with Evgeny Tomashevsky (RUS); Andrey Vovk (UKR) lt to Vladimir Kramnik (RUS); Abhijeet Gupta drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA); Eltaj Safarli (AZE) drew with P Harikrishna; Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) lt to Milos Perunovic (CRO); Yu Yangyi (CHN) bt Vasif Durarbayli (AZE); Ding Liren (CHN) bt Surya Shekhar Ganguly; Aleksandr Rakhmanov (RUS) drew with Debashis Das; Aryan Tari (NOR) lt to B Adhiban; Aleksander MIsta (POL) lt to Aravindh Chithambaram; Sandipan Chanda drew with Shardul Gagare; Wen Yang (CHN) drew with Rishi Sardana; M S Thejkumar drew with Artur Jussupow (GER); Xu Yinglun (CHN) drew with G N Gopal; Hovhannes Gabuzyan (ARM) drew with P Konguvel; Gao Rui (CHN) drew with S Vijayalakshmi; Zhansaya Abdumalik (KAZ) bt Ankit Rajpara; Stelios Halkias (GRE) bt Mary Ann Gomes; D Harika bt Erik Hedman; Zeinab Mamedjarova (AZE) lt to Neelotpal Das; S Kidambi bt Nuri Kambez; Murali Karthikeyan bt Julia Kochetkova; M Shyam Sundar bt Gabriel Gaehwiler (SUI); Salih Akar Ali Salih lt to Sayantan Das.