Abhijeet grabs sole lead with fifth victory in Parsvnath chess

Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta defeated fellow Grandmaster M R Lalith Babu to grab the sole lead on five points after the fifth round of the 12th Parsvnath Delhi International Grandmasters Chess Tournament here today.
With his fifth victory in as many games, Gupta surged ahead of the field by a full point at the half way stage with five rounds still to go.
It was a case of hit and miss for Babu who faced the Grunfeld defense from Gupta and went for the Hungarian variation that resulted in a oft-repeated variation. Gupta chose to win white's queen for three minor pieces that is theoretically proven to be sound and Babu got the slight advantage he was hoping for as the game progressed.

However, just when things started to heat up, Gupta was able to retain the balance with a rook sacrifice for a minor piece and even proposed a draw that was spurned down. Hoping to win from a level position, Lalith Babu misjudged a tactical trick that cost him the full point.
As many as 11 players share the second spot on four points each. They are Georgian duo of Levon Pantsulaia and Merab Gagunashvili, Raset Ziatdinov of United States, Valeriy Neverov of Ukraine, Bobbir Sattarov of Uzbekistan and Indians M R Venkatesh, Deepan Chakkravarthy, Ankit Rajpara, Nr Vignesh, Deep Sengupta and Lalith Babu.