Murzin Joins Leaders in Three-Way Tie for First • lichess.org

Lichess Coverage

IM Irene Sukandar is covering the event for Lichess on our YouTube and Twitch at 11:00 UTC until 22 May!

Schedule

After Eight Rounds

With one more round to go, Bardiya Daneshvar, Volodar Murzin, and Sam Shankland (arranged by descending order according to the better tiebreaks) are currently leading the 7th Sharjah Masters with 6/8. It is most likely that one of them will win the event, but all hope is not lost for the chasing pack, which includes M. Amin Tabatabaei, Alexey Sarana, Arjun Erigaisi, A.R. Saleh Salem, Shamsiddin Vokhidov, Parham Maghsoodloo, and Aydin Suleymanli, on 5.5/8. On board 1, Sam Shankland wll face Volodar Murzin, while on board 2, Bardiya Daneshvar’s reward for playing so well is to play with the Black pieces against world number 6, Arjun Erigaisi. On board 3, in the battle of compatriots, Parham Maghsoodloo and M. Amin Tabatabaei will be paired against each other. Boards 4 and 5 will see Aydin Suleymanli vs. Alexey Sarana and A. R. Saleh Salem vs. Shamsiddin Vokhidov, respectively.

Games

9, 16, and 37 moves — that is how quickly boards 1, 2, and 3, respectively, drew. With the draws, Daneshvar and Shankland (board 1), Sarana and Erigaisi (board 2), and Tabatabaei and Suleymanli (board 3) will go into round 9 with a lot of time to prepare and relax compared to the other players. On board 4, though, Volodar Murzin was not willing to play staid chess and instead had a positional advantage for a large amount of time against Chithambaram Veerappan Aravindh. Aravindh defended well, however, but in severe time trouble (less than a minute), he made back-to-back inaccuracies, allowing Murzin to get a passed b-pawn and seal the win. Catch the excitement here!

https://lichess.org/study/embed/DfJ9p0sF/fa10CQCe#0

On board 5, Parham Maghsoodloo also wanted to fight, and with the bishop pair, he forced Mahammad Muradli to sacrifice an exchange early on. The position was definitely closer to a draw than a win, though, but again with limited time, the worse side is likely to become the losing side. On move 85, Maghsoodloo finally breached Muradli’s fortress and played a pawn check on move 91, forcing Muradli to resign with mate on the 93rd move threatened.

https://lichess.org/study/embed/DfJ9p0sF/NOuzXXeL#0

On board 6, Abhimanyu Puranik drew a relatively calm game against Yu Yangyi. On boards 7 and 8, though, it was going to be another endgame showdown, with Shamsiddin Vokhidov defeating Hans Niemann in an endgame remniscent of that seen on board 5, where White was up the exchange but Black had compensation, and A.R. Saleh Salem also beating Thai Dai Van Nguyen in an endgame, where Salem’s king was very active.

https://lichess.org/study/embed/DfJ9p0sF/loiz3Dea#0

https://lichess.org/study/embed/DfJ9p0sF/i06JLxbx#0

You can follow the remaining games here:

https://lichess.org/broadcast/sharjah–masters/round-8/DfJ9p0sF

Again, make sure to catch our live coverage of the event on YouTube and Twitch!