India’s Karthikeyan Murali and Vaibhav Suri shared the lead with 31 others after winning their respective second round matches at the 18th Gibraltar International Chess Festival in Gibraltar.
Grand Master Karthikeyan Murali, who finished second here last year, scored a win over Dominik Horvath of Austria while GM Suri beat Irina Bulmaga. Both of them have two points each.
Top seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov beat fellow Grand Master Stephen J Gordon in 55 moves for a second straight win, second-seeded Maxime Vachier-Lagrave dropped half a point, settling for a draw against lower-ranked Gabriel Flom.
Meanwhile, the top rated Indians in the field, B Adhiban and K Sasikiran bounced back after draws in the opening round, to register wins over Germany’s Oswald Gschnitzer and Nurgyul Salimova (Bulgaria) to take their tally to 1.5 points.
Young Indian GM Shardul Gagare held former world No.4 Michael Adams to a creditable draw.
Talented youngster R Praggnanandhaa, who was shocked by fellow Indian P V Nandhidhaa in the first round, beat Chukwunonso Oragwu while another youngster D Gukesh defeated Canadian Viktor Plotkin with white pieces.
Kazakhstan’s Zhansaya Abdumalik (2471) scored the biggest upset of the day to beat Iranian GM Amin Tabatabaei (2638)
Important results: Round 2:
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2 beat Stephen Gordon 1; Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 1.5 drew with Flom Gabriel 1.5; Wang Hao 1.5 drew Martin Petrov 1.5; Evandro Barbosa 1.5 drew Veselin Topalov 1.5; David Navara 1.5 drew Tingjie Lei 1.5.
Kirilll Alekseenko 2 beat Lance Henderson de La Fuente, 1; Vassily Ivanchuk 2 beat Pedro Antonio Gines Esteo 1; Karthikeyan Murali 2 beat Dominik Horvath 1; Shardul Gagare 1.5 drew Michael Adams 1.5; Ivan Cheparinov 2 beat Thal Ivan Abergel 1.
B Adhiban 1.5 drew Oswald Gschnitzer 1.5; K Sasikiran 1.5 drew Nurgyul Salimova 1.5; R Praggnanandhaa 1 beat Chukwunonso Oragwu ; D Gukesh 1.5 beat Viktor Plotkin 0.5.
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