Krasenkov storms into lead

CHENNAI, MAY 16. Michal Krasenkov of Poland scored an upset victory over Boris Gelfand of Israel to storm into lead at the end of the fourth round of the Leonid Stein memorial chess tournament at Lviv in Ukraine on Monday.

This six player category 17 tournament is the strongest ever held in Ukraine. Krasenkov leads the points table with 3.5 points ahead of favourite Ivanchuk (3).

Krasenkov's aggressive play from the word go netted white's king in 37 moves from a queen's gambit opening. His play was impressive, considering that he played black. Trooping in his rook, he sparked an attack that grew into a massive ransacking of the white king side. Gelfand lost pathetically.

Ivanchuk was always a little better in his game against Ukrainian team-mate Romanishin but could not avert a draw by perpetual check in a queen ending in 66 moves.

In the other drawn encounter, Beliavsky held Korchnoi to a 33- move draw from a rook ending that emerged from a Nimzo- Indian defence opening. Korchnoi was impressive with black but it was not enough to win.

The results (4th round): V. Ivanchuk (Ukr) drew with O. Romanishin (Ukr), B. Gelfand (Isr) lost to M. Krasenkov (Pol), A. Beliavsky (Slv) drew with V. Korchnoi (Swz).

The standings: 1 M. Krasenkov 3.5/4, 2 V. Ivanchuk 3, 3 V. Korchnoi 2, 4 O. Romanishin 1.5, 5-6 A. Beliavsky, B. Gelfand 1 each.

- Our Chess Correspondent.

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