Second seed Russian GM Ivan Popov surged ahead of the field defeating Vitaly Sivuk of Ukraine in the seventh round of the premier section of 14th Parsvnath Delhi International Chess Festival now underway here.
With his seventh victory in as many games coming in spectacular fashion, Popov maintained his all-win record and now leads by a massive 1.5 points with just three rounds remaining in the Rs. 12.5 Lakh prize money tournament.
The Indian talents continued with their impressive run in the tournament and leading from the front was young IM Sayantan Das, who held top seed GM Boris Grachev of Russia to a creditable draw.
In the news for his superb performance int he last few rounds, untitled R A Pradeep Kumar also inched closer to an IM norm by holding GM Sriram Jha to a draw.
With Popov on seven points as many as 11 players share the second spot on 5.5 points apiece. They are Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine, Nguyen Duc Hoa of Vietnam, Attila Czebe of Hungary, Sivuk, Grachev and Indians M R Lalith Babu, S Ravi Teja, Sriram Jha, Pradeep Kumar, N R Vignesh and Sayantan Das.
Apart from Sayantan and Pradeep Kumar, Ravi Teja also came to the party and held Solodovnichenko to a draw while highest rated Indian Lalith Babu came back in reckoning for top honours at the expense of K Praneeth Surya.
Lower down, Sammed Jaykumar Shete and B T Muralikrishna also caused major upsets in the tournament. While Shete accounted for Ukrainian Grandmaster Adam Tukhaev, Uzbek Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev was on the receiving end against Muralikrishna.
Popov however stole the limelight showing some high quality chess yet again. Sivuk was no match in a Scotch opening game as Popov found a brilliant tactical resource sacrificing his queen to win in just 32 moves.
