Sasikiran scores effortless win; Kunte falters against Yuldashev

By Manuel Aaron

CHENNAI, AUG. 26. Indian Grandmaster K. Sasikiran beat Russian Grandmaster and second seed Alexander Fominyh to maintain his one point lead at the end of the 12th and penultimate round of the Pentamedia Grandmaster chess tournament here on Saturday evening.

The Russian, who had also lost to Kunte on Friday and was low in spirits, claimed afterwards that he wanted to leave for home on Saturday itself as his plane connection to his hometown of Novosibirsk would be best if he caught a flight to Delhi immediately. He brought his final round opponent P. Harikrishna to the arbiters and wanted to play the game on Saturday evening itself.

After much discussion they were allowed to play the final round game in advance. This was a short eight move draw and the Russian left at once for the airport. Sasikiran was at his best in his game against Fominyh who played the Slav Defence against the Queens Gambit. Fominyh played e6-e5 at the 14th move to forestall white's own pawn push to the same square. But this move allowed Sasikiran to gain the initiative. And Sasikiran is at his best when he has the initiative. When the queens were exchanged off on the 18th turn, white had a developmental advantage.

He brought out his forces with threats and got a situation where a black bishop had to be permanently supported by a knight. He advanced his pawn to a6 and with the threat of invading the second rank Sasikiran forced the Russian to play b6- b5. Then he exchanged off rooks and finally attacked black's a7 pawn with his knight and bishop. When Fominyh could not defend it, he gave up the fight on the 37th move.

Dibyendu Barua was beaten by Evgeny Vladimirov. In the Exchange Variation of the Queens Gambit Declined, Vladimirov had castled on the queen-side while Barua had castled short.

After the early exchange of queens, Barua missed a promising continuation with 17...a5 pointed out by Sasikiran's coach and father, S. Krishnan. That would have led to an attack on the white castled position as black's forces were ideally situated for it.

However, Barua moved the pawn only one square forward and was forced to suffer for the rest of the game. He had a backward pawn on the c6 square. Vladimirov doubled the rooks along the semi- open c-file and also got his knight a wonderful outpost at c5.

After a lot of manoeuvring in the middle-game, Vladimirov sacrificed his knight on a6 and obtained three pawns for it. Barua created a passed pawn for himself along the h-file, but it was easily checked by the white king.

Meanwhile Barua was unable to stop white's connected passed pawns on the queen-side from advancing even though he was having an extra knight. He gave up on the 56th move.

The Iranian national champion Ehsan Ghaem Maghami was completely outplayed by the Bangladesh International Master Reefat bin Sattar. But the final winner was the Iranian. The game was a Dutch Defence by transposition.

Both players ran into time trouble when Reefat sprang a rook for bishop sacrifice on the 31st move. With a queen and rook inside the white position, Reefat should have wrapped up the game quickly. But in time trouble he dithered and finally on the 40th move, overstepped the time control and lost.

After his brilliant fireworks against Fominyh in the previous round, Abhijit Kunte was unrecognisable against the Uzbek Grandmaster Saidali Yuldashev. Everything was level in a Ruy Lopez Steinitz variation till the 30th move.

Then Kunte made a positionally inferior move by pushing up his a- pawn and made his own b3 pawn a sitting duck. Yuldashev had a queen, rook and bishop against Kunte's queen, rook and knight. When the white position was being stretched in defending the b3 pawn and possible incursions into his enfeebled castled position, Kunte made a weak move with his king.

Yuldashev was ready with a bishop offer. He captured white's a4 pawn. Kunte could not recapture that bishop as he would have lost his queen. After this Kunte lost his b3 pawn also though he captured black's d6 pawn. Both players queened their pawns. The new queens were traded off and in the ensuing battle between the old queens, Yuldashev won by the tactic of exchanging off queens and getting a second new queen.

The game between Harikrishna and Prakash was drawn in 64 moves in a rook and opposite colour bishop ending. Harikrishna appeared to be playing for a draw even though he was having the white pieces. The game between tail-enders Sandipan Chanda and D.V. Prasad was draw on the 23rd move.

Doordarshan Sports will be covering the final round live on Sunday. The coverage will be from 12 noon to 2 p.m.

lThe results (round 12): Ghaem Maghami bt Reefat; Chanda drew with Prasad; Vladimirov bt Barua; Kunte lost to Yuldashev; Sasikiran bt Fominyh; Harikrishna drew with Prakash; Ganguly - bye.

The points position: 1 Sasikiran 8.5; 2 Vladimirov 7.5; 3 Prakash 7; 4 Barua 6.5; 5 Yuldashev 6; 6-8 Reefat, Kunte, Harikrishna 5.5; 9 Fominyh 5; 10 Ghaem Maghami 4.5; 11-13 Ganguly, Chanda, Prasad 3.5. The score of Prakash is final as he has a bye in the last round.

Thirteenth round pairings: Fominyh - Harikrishna (game already played and drawn); Yuldashev - Sasikiran; Barua - Kunte; Prasad - Vladimirov; Reefat - Chanda; Ganguly - Ghaem Maghami; Prakash - bye.

Arvind wins

C.J. Arvind of Loyola College won the ONGC-sponsored FIDE-Rated Open chess tournament with a round to spare. He has 10 points and leads J. Ramakrishna of Andhra by a full point.

Ramakrishna was beaten by K.V. Shantharam of Indian Bank in the penultimate round on Saturday.

lThe results (12th round): C.J. Arvind (Loyola) 10 drew with K. Gunasekaran (ICF) 8; K.V. Shantharam (Ind Bk) 9 bt R. Ramakrishna (AP) 9; N. Sudhakar Babu 8.5 bt R. Balasubramaniam (ICF) 7.5; Saheli Dhar (SE Rly) 8.5 bt Devendra Kumar 7.5; Ebenezer Joseph (P&T Audit) 7.5 drew with Saimeera Ravi 8; R. Siddarth 8 bt Poobesh Anand (Mdu) 7; G. Rohit (AP) 7 lost to P. Rajesh 8; Ram S. Krishnan 7.5 bt J.E. Kavitha 7; S. Raghuraman 7 drew with K. Gopalakrishnan (Ind Bk) 7; Shyam S. Krishnan 7 drew with S. Bharath 7; H. Nilavoli 6.5 lost to R.V. Venkatakrishnan 7.5; A.H. Huq (Bangladesh) 7 bt G. Ravindran 6; S.P. Pandiakumar 7 bt K.N. Ranga 6; R. Navaneethakrishnan 6 lost to S. Sujatha 7; S. Sanjai Kumar 6 lost to Kambar Ali (Bangladesh) 7; T.T. Lakshmipriyaa 6.5 bt V. Kameswaran 5.5; P. Priya 6.5 bt S. Benoglad 5.5.

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