The Hindu : Sasikiran is king again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 16, 2002

Sport

Sport - Chess

Sasikiran is king again

By Rakesh Rao

Grandmaster K. Sasikiran with the trophy after winning the International Grandmasters tournament at Raipur on Friday. Sasikiran beat Kotsur Pavel in the final round. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

RAIPUR, MARCH 15. Rising to the occasion and playing like a true champion, K. Sasikiran toppled top seed Kostur Pavel to rightfully claim the honours in the Rs. 3.5-lakh International Grandmasters chess tournament here at Sibbal Palace on Friday.

Needing to win the final round for the winner's cheque of Rs. one lakh, the 21-year-old Sasikiran came up with another error-free performance with white pieces against the Kazakh. The winning tally of 8.5 points gave the ONGC officer his fifth straight title. His awe-inspiring winning streak began at Kozhikode in December and continued through Hastings, Nagpur and Bikaner before here.

Much before Sasikiran downed Pavel in a queen-and-pawn ending following an irregular set up in 60 moves, the other overnight leader Andrey Shariyazdanov, also unbeaten, had drawn in just 15 moves with fellow-Russian GM Ruslan Sherbakov. As a result, Sasikiran's task was cut out. Even in case of a draw, Sasikiran would have still lifted the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister's Trophy but had to share the prize-money. The timely victory, Sasikiran's first in the last six rounds, prevented all calculations.

But all credit to Pavel for running Sasikiran close. It must be remembered that the Kazakh had missed the first round and gained a second-round bye before starting his campaign. Considering the fact that Pavel played one match less than Sasikiran and still made it to the top board on the last day, reflects his actual strength and form.

With Sasikiran emerging as a clear champion, Iranian GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami shared the runner-up slot with Shariyazdanov. They received Rs. 60,000 each after aggregating eight points. Significantly, Maghami made it after dashing Sandipan Chanda's hopes of completing his GM title-norm.

On the brighter side, Pune-lad Prathmesh Mokal made his maiden nine-game International Master norm after double GM-norm holder Uzbek IM Tahir Vakhidov was declared `lost on time' in a winning position, though Vakhidov protested _ both vocally and later in writing _ claiming the clock had malfunctioned during the match and robbed him of precious time. After brief deliberations, the Appeals Committee turned down the protest on the ground that there was no witness to the ``situation'' and the evidence available was ``insufficient.''

Pavel, Alexander Fominyh and Sherbakov tallied 7.5 points and filled fourth to sixth places, worth Rs. 21,666 each. They were followed by Chanda and Uzbek GM Marat Dzhumaev, the man who drew with Barua after sacrificing two bishops and a knight for six pawns in the most unusual game of the championship.

Coming back to the virtual `title-bout', a pawn-gain on the queen's side raised visions of victory for Sasikiran. Pavel, who seemed equally keen to win, missed a queen-move, which probably could have earned him a draw. Thereafter, after the exchange of rooks, Sasikiran gradually tightened his grip. Sasikiran's extra pawn, advanced on the queen's side, kept Pavel's queen busy. With some smart play, Sasikiran even reached a position where Pavel's king faced the danger of being checkmated. Once Sasikiran began shifting his king to the queen's side, Pavel looked worried. As trouble mounted further, Pavel ran out of time and left Sasikiran as the undisputed champion.

Sasikiran, who gained 12 Elo rating points for his performance, was not visibly excited after winning yet another title. Like at Bikaner last month, Sasikiran again chose to describe the triumph as ``nothing special.'' He now plays in the Goodricke championship beginning in Kolkata on Sunday.

``After Kolkata, I plan to take a break. By playing continuously, I am not getting any new ideas over the board. I'll take time off to prepare for the tournaments ahead,'' said Sasikiran who performed like a player with an Elo rating of 2662 _ as against his current rating of 2569. The points gained from winning five tournaments, as per Sasikiran's assessment, must enhance his present rating to about 2625.

The results (Indian unless stated):

11th and final round: K. Sasikiran (8.5) bt Kotsur Pavel (Kaz) (7.5); Ruslan Sherbakov (Rus) (7.5) drew with Andrey Shariyazdanov (Rus) (8); Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Ira) (8) bt Sandipan Chanda (7); Abhijit Kunte (6) lost to Alexander Fominyh (Rus) (7.5); Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) (7) drew with Dibyendu Barua (6.5); P. Magesh Chandran (6.5) drew with R. B. Ramesh (6.5); D. V. Prasad (6.5) drew with S. Kidambi (6.5); Lanka Ravi (6.5) drew with Pravin Thipsay (6.5); Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) (6) lost to Prathmesh Mokal (6.5); Tejas Bakre (6.5) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (5.5); Sriram Jha (6) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (6); Suvrajit Saha (5.5) lost to P. Konguvel (6.5); K. Ratnakaran (5.5) lost to S. Vijayalakshmi (6.5); Ravi Kumar (5) lost to T. S. Ravi (6); K. Visweswaran (5) lost to S. Satyapragyan (6); Varugeese Koshy (5) lost to P. D. S. Girinath (6); C. J. Arvind (5.5) drew with N. Sanjay (5.5); Himanshu Kumar (5) lost to Anup Deshmukh (6); Nisha Mohota (5.5) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu (5); S. Meenakshi (5) drew with Jayant Gokhale (5); Rahul Shetty (5.5) bt Deep Sengupta (4.5); Abhijeet Gupta (5) drew with Yogesh Gore (5); Anupama Gokhale (5) bt Eesha Karavade (4); Saheli Dhar-Barua (4.5) drew with Swati Ghate (4.5); K. Narayanan (4.5) drew with Vedant Goswami (4.5); Keshav Shrestha (Nep) (4) lost to Shashikant Kutwal (5); G. N. Gopal (4) lost to Vijay Keerthi (5); Krishna Thapa (Nep) (3.5) lost to Saurabh Kherdekar (4.5); Kruttika Nadig (4.5) w.o. Santosh Kaushik (3.5); Minhazuddin Ahmed (Ban) (3.5) drew with Shamima Akther Liza (Ban) (2); G. C. Anuruddha (Sri) (4) bye.

Final standings: 1. Sasikiran; 2-3. Shariyazdanov and Maghami; 4-6. Pavel, Fominyh and Sherbakov; 7-8. Chanda and Dzhumaev; 9-20. Barua, Mishra, Bakre, Lanka Ravi, Thipsay, Magesh, Kidambi, Prasad, Konguvel, Ramesh, Vijayalakshmi and Mokal; 21-25. Kunte, Vakhidov, Sorokin, Jha and Chowdhury.

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