Sport - Chess

Sherbakov wins a marathon

By Rakesh Rao

Ruslan Sherbakov (left) makes a move on way to victory against S. Vijayalakshmi in the eighth round of the International Grandmasters tournament at Raipur on Tuesday. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

RAIPUR, MARCH 12. It was the kind of defeat that brings with it, exhaustion and exasperation. Such was the experience of S. Vijayalakshmi as she fought for over five hours and 118 moves before bowing to the brilliant endgame skills of Russian Grandmaster Ruslan Sherbakov.

After draws on the top boards ensured that K. Sasikiran remained unchanged as leader after eight rounds of the International Grandmasters chess tournament, none of the Indians apart from Vijayalakshmi raised visions of upstaging a GM.

With three rounds to go, Sasikiran maintained his half-point lead after being held by Iranian GM Eshan Ghaem Maghami in 26 moves of English Opening. Earlier on the second board, Russian Andrey Shariyazdanov and top-seeded Kazakh Kotsur Pavel signed the peace treaty in just 12 moves. As a result, Sasikiran, with 6.5 points, stayed half-a-point ahead of Maghami and Shariyazdanov. At 5.5 points are Kotsur, Sherbakov, Tahir Vakhidov, Dibyendu Barua, Abhijit Kunte, Tejas Bakre and Sandipan Chanda.

In the midst of deadlocks, the match between Vijayalakshmi and Sherbakov had to stand out. After taking the initiative from the queenside, following the Reti Opening, Vijayalakshmi sacrificed a rook for a knight and two pawns in a four-move combination beginning from the 27th move. She held the advantage well after the exchange of the major pieces. But after getting into a seemingly promising position, Vijayalakshmi found the going tough.

At the same time, Sherbakov chose the opportunity to showcase his skills. The manner in which he got the most of his rook, knight and bishop against Vijayalakshmi's bishop-pair and knight was truly remarkable. Down two pawns, Sherbakov grabbed one when Vijayalakshmi overlooked a tactic. Thereafter, he squeezed more out of his already-overworked rook and went on to exchange the knights. With mounting pressure from the clock, Vijayalakshmi allowed the exchange of bishops and with it, blundered her other bishop to lose.

Madurai-boy Deepan Chakkravarthy drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury and now needs a similar result, with white pieces, against P. Konguvel on Wednesday to gain his maiden International Master norm. P. Magesh Chandran kept alive his chances of a second IM norm by beating Nisha Mohota.

The results (Indians unless stated): Eighth round: Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Ira) (6) drew with K. Sasikiran (6.5); Andrey Sharyazdanov (Rus) (6) drew with Kotsur Pavel (Kaz) (5.5); Dibyendu Barua (5.5) drew with Abhijit Kunte (5.5); Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) (5.5) drew with Sandipan Chanda (5.5); Pravin Thipsay (5) drew with Maxim Sorokin (Arg) (5); S. Vijayalakshmi (4.5) lost to Ruslan Sherbakov (Rus) (5.5); Tejas Bakre (5.5) bt N. Sudhakar Babu (4.5); Lanka Ravi (5) drew with D.V. Prasad (5); Alexander Fominyh (Rus) (5) bt Prathmesh Mokal (4); N. Sanjay (4) lost to Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) (5); Nisha Mohota (4) lost to P. Mahesh Chandran (5); Sriram Jha (4.5) drew with Rahul Shetty (4.5); Neeraj Kumar Mishra (4.5) drew with Varugeese Koshy (); R.B. Ramesh (4.5) bt Ravi Kumar (3.5); Saurabh Kherdekar (3.5) lost to S. Kidambi (4.5); P. Konguvel (4) drew with C.J. Arvind (4); Deepan Chakkravarthy (4) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (4); S. Satyapragyan (4) drew with Anupama Gokhale (4); Suvarjit Saha (4) drew with Himanshu Kumar (4); Anup Deshmukh (4) drew with Keshav Shrestha (Nep) (4); Deep Sengupta (4.5) bt K. Ratnakaran (3.5); Yogesh Gore (3.5) drew with Jayant Gokhale (3.5); S. Meenakshi (3.5) drew with T.S. Ravi (3.5); P.D.S. Girinath (3.5) bt G.N. Gopal (3); Vijay Keerthi (3) drew with K. Visweswaran (3); Krishna Thapa (Nep) (2.5) lost to Vedant Goswami (3.5); Shashikant Kutwal (3.5) bt Saheli Dhar-Barua (2.5); Santosh Kaushik (3) drew with G.C. Aniruddha (Sri) (3); Kruttika Nadig (2.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (3); K. Narayanan (3) bt Swati Ghate (2); Eesha Karavade (3) bt Shamima Akther Liza (Ban) (1); Minhazuddin Ahmed (Ban) (2.5) bye.

Top-10 ninth round pairings: Sasikiran-Sherbakov; Vakhidov-Shariyazdanov; Kunte-Maghami; Kotsur-Bakre; Chanda-Barua; Sorokin-Ravi; Dzhumaev-Fominyh; Magesh-Thipsay; Koshy-Ramesh; Prasad-Mishra.

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