Ramesh beats Heinz

BIEL, JULY 26. It was a day of mixed fortunes for the Indians in the second round of the Biel Open chess tournament here. IM R.B. Ramesh won his game and IM-elect T.S. Ravi and young S. Kidambi drew against highly-rated IM Radjabov and GM Kempinski respectively while IMs Saravanan and Konguvel went down to IM Pikula and GM Klovans respectively.

Ramesh played aggressively against Ernst Heinz's centre counter opening. The players castled on the opposite wings and Ramesh opened the opponents king position first and checkmated him on the 24th move to 2.0 points.

Kidambi held GM Robert Kempinski to a creditable draw with the black pieces and fixed a rare move from his opponent quite early in the opening. In an unclear middlegame, Kempinski allowed Kidambi to get a slightly better position and repeated moves. Kidambi, not in a mood to test his opponent, took the draw by the 25th move.

Ravi also did well to hold highly-rated IM Radjabov to a draw. Ravi played the French Tarasch variation and hurled his kingside pawns at his opponent with his king still in the centre.

The position remained unclear and both players were nearing the first time-control, decided to play it safe by repeating the moves and drew the game in 30 moves.

Saravanan faced the Rassolino Variation of Sicilian Defence from his opponent IM Pikula. The position got transformed into a Ruy Lopez sort-of-structure. Saravanan won a pawn in the middlegame, but his opponent had a terrific attack with his rook on the seventh rank. In mutual time scramble Pikula outwitted Saravanan.

Konguvel equalised comfortably with black pieces against GM J. Klovans from the accentuated Daragon Variation. Klovans allowed Konguvel to take the initiative and at one point even lost a pawn. But Konguvel missed a tactical shot in time trouble and blundered a piece to lose the game in 30 moves.

In the closed tournament being held simultaneously, GM Svidler is leading with 2.0 points from the two rounds. The other players are GMs Ponomariov, Van Wely, Boris Gelfard, Vadim Milov and Joseph Gallagher in this double round-robin tournament.

Other important results: A. Volokitin (1) lost to Boris Avrukh (2); Roiz Michael (1) drew with A. Galkin; Riazantsev (1) lost to GM Cabalo (2).

- PTI

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