The Hindu : Sasikiran lets Sorokin wriggle out

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 20, 2002

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Sport - Chess

Sasikiran lets Sorokin wriggle out
By Amitabha Das Sharma

KOLKATA, MARCH 19. Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran continued to keep India's flag flying high as he retained his spot among the leaders at the end of the third round of the Goodricke International Open chess tournament at the Gorky Sadan here on Tuesday.

With the top three boards - pitting the overnight leaders - witnessing drawn encounters, none could break into the sole lead.

The drawn games on the top boards caused the leadership chart increase to nine players as GMs Alexander Motylev (Russia), Evgeny Gleizerov (Russia) and Sarunas Sulskis (Lithuania) joined the overnight toppers - Pavel Kotsur (Kazakhstan), Alexander Goloshchapov (Ukraine), Maxim Sorokin (Argentina), Alexander Fominyh (Russia), Arsen Yegiazarian (Armenia) and Sasikiran - with 2.5 points each.

In second spot were 12 players, including four Indians - International Master R.B. Ramesh, IM Tejas Bakre, IM Sandipan Chanda and IM G.B. Prakash - with 2 points each.

Sasikiran playing black, tried to force a win against Argentine GM Sorokin, employing the Queen's Indian defence. Sasikiran enjoyed better position right from the beginning as Sorokin failed to develop his kingside. Sasikiran created a passed `a' pawn in a rook and bishop versus rook and bishop ending, but let go the advantage as Sorokin managed to wriggle out of the crisis.

IM G.B. Prakash's was the best performance among the other Indians as he catapulted into second place with an upset win over Slovenian GM Drazen Sermek. Prakash (Elo 2480), having already confirmed three GM norms, now needs to touch the rating of 2500 to become India's seventh GM. And the upset win against Sermek is likely to help the Indian build up a good average after the tournament.

Prakash came up with a novelty on the 11th move against Sermek's Benko Gambit. The Slovenian, however, defended accurately and restored parity after the 23rd move. Sermek made errors later to weaken his kingside which gave Prakash opportunity to coordinate his rook and bishop and catch his opponent in a mating net.

GM Dibyendu Barua conceded the bishop pair advantage in a Catalan opening against Gleizerov and surrendered in 51 moves.

The results (Indians unless otherwise specified): Pavel Kotsur (Kaz) 2.5 drew with Alexander Goloshchapov (Ukr) 2.5; Maxim Sorokin (Arg) 2.5 drew with Krishnan Sasikiran 2.5; Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 2.5 drew with Arsen Yegiazarian (Arm) 2.5; Sergei Ovsejevitsch (Ukr) 2 drew with Aleksei Aleksandrov (Blr) 2; Alexander Motylev (Rus) 2.5 bt P. Mahesh Chandran 1.5; Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus) 2.5 bt Dibyendu Barua 1.5; Abdulla Al- Rakib (Ban) 1.5 lost to Sarunas Sulskis (Ltu) 2.5; Alexey Kuzmin (Rus) 2 drew with Mohamad Al-Sayed (Qat) 2; Andrey Shariyazdanov (Rus) 2 drew with Joerg Blauert (Ger) 2; G.B. Prakash 2 bt Drazen Sermek (Slo) 1; Ruslan Sherbakov (Rus) 1.5 drew with Sriram Jha 1.5; Bogdan Lalic (Eng) 2 bt Krishna Thapa (Nep) 1; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri) 1.5 drew with Swathi Ghate 1.5; R.B. Ramesh 2 bt Rahul Shetty 1; Sundarajan Kidambi 1.5 drew with Abhijit Kunte 1.5; Tejas Bakre 2 bt Vikramjit Singh 1; Lanka Ravi 1 lost to Sandipan Chanda 2; Enamul Hossain (Ban) 0.5 lost to Jing Wong Zi (Mas) 2; K. Visweswaran 1 drew with Koneru Humpy 1; Ponnuswamy Konguvel 1.5 bt Suvrajit Saha 0.5; V. Saravanan 1.5 bt Aarthie Ramaswamy 0.5; Dinesh Kumar Sharma 1 drew with Nisha Mohota 1; Somak Palit 1 drew with T.S. Ravi 1; S. Satyapragyan 1.5 bt Rahul Sangma 0.5; Saheli Dhar Barua 1.5 bt Deep Sengupta 0; P.D.S. Girinath 0 lost to Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury 1; Shayeste Ghader Pour (Iri) lost to Yogesh Gore 1.

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