Sport - Chess

Aleksei Aleksandrov joins leaders
By Amitabha Das Sharma

Arsen Yegiazarian of Armenia making a move in his game against Evgeny Gleizerov of Russia in the fifth round of the Goodricke International chess tournament in Kolkata on Thursday. The game ended in a draw.

KOLKATA, MARCH 21. On a day littered with drawn encounters in the top boards, the end of the fifth round of the XIII Goodricke International Open chess tournament, continued in the same diluted state with several players sharing the leadership. The old guards-Indian Grandmaster K. Sasikiran, Lithuanian GM Sarunas Sulskis and Armenian GM Arsen Yegiazarian-who finished on top of the action overnight, retained their status with a new member in Belorussian GM Aleksei Aleksandrov, joining them on the first position with four points.

As was the case in the fourth round on Thursday, no Indians could break into the second spot, which had seven players-GM Evgeny Gleizerov, GM Andrey Seriyazdanov, GM Aleksander Motylev, Alexey Kuzmin, Alexander Fominyh (all Russians), GM Aleksander Goloschapov (Ukraine) and Maxim Sorokin (Argentina)-sharing the position with 3.5 points each.

Sasikiran opted for the Classical Variation as his opponent, Sulskis, adopted the Nimzo-Indian defence. The Indian GM's plan of g4 did not go well as it created several weaknesses. He castled long while his opponent made a short castle. Sasikiran next opened his king's position with b4 which could have spelt danger but his opponent missed bc5 and squandered the possible advantage.

In an opposite colour Bishop-ending with queens on the board, the Indian managed to set up mate-threat and his opponent had no way but to go for a draw with a perpetual. The truce was signed after 37 moves.

Two other Indians-International Master Tejas Bakre and S. Satyapragyan-took the battle against fancied opponents and played out creditable draws against the Kazakhstan GM Pavel Kotsur and Ukraine GM Sergei Ovsejevitsch, respectively.

Bakre, with black pieces, went for the semi-Slav and had slight disadvantage initially, but equalised the game as Kotsur did not play correctly. The game was drawn in 31 moves.

Ovsejevitsch, playing black pieces against Satyapragyan, went for the Modern defence and with 11...e5, allowed exchanging of pawns and major pieces leading to a draw in 17 moves.

G.B. Prakash's hopes of achieving Elo rating of 2,500 receded to a distance as he lost to Russian GM Alexey Kuzmin in 33 moves adopting a Slav Defence.

WGM Koneru Humpy's chance of getting the third GM norm too appeared to fade as she succumbed to another draw playing compatriot IM Sriram Jha.

IM P. Konguvel and P. Mahesh Chandran played Bangladesh opponents, IM Abdulla Al-Rakib and Fide Master Inamul Hussain, respectively and won easily to remain the only Indians winning against foreigners.

The results: Krishnan Sasikiran (Ind) 4 drew with Sarunas Sulskis (Ltu) 4; Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus) 3.5 drew with Arsen Yegiazarian (Arm) 4; Wong Zi Jing (Mas) 3 lost to Aleksei Aleksandrov (Blr) 4; Andrey Seriyazdanov (Rus) 3.5 drew with Aleksander Goloschapov (Ukr) 3.5; Aleksander Motylev (Rus) 3.5 bt Bogdan Lalic (Eng) 2.5; Pavel Kotsur (Kaz) 3 drew with Tejas Bakre (Ind) 3; Alexey Kuzmin (Rus) 3.5 bt G.B. Prakash (Ind) 2.5; Maxim Sorokin (Arg) 3.5 bt Mohammad N. Al-Sayed (Qtr) 2.5; Ruslan Sherbakov (Rus) 3 drew with Joerg Blauert (Ger) 3; Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 3.5 bt Swati Ghate (Ind) 2.5; S. Satyapragyan (Ind) 3 drew with Sergei Ovsejevitsch (Ukr) 3; Sundarajan Kidambi (Ind) 2 lost to Drazen Sermek (Slo) 3; Sriram Jha (Ind) 2.5 drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind) 2.5; V. Saravanan (Ind) 2.5 drew with Dibyendu Barua (Ind) 2.5; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri) 3 bt Saheli Dhar Barua (Ind) 2; R.B. Ramesh (Ind) 3 bt Nisha Mohta (Ind) 2; Yogesh Gore (Ind) 2 lost to Abhijit Kunte (Ind) 3; K. Visweswaran (Ind) 2 lost to Sandipan Chanda (Ind) 3; Lanka Ravi (Ind) 2 drew with T.S. Ravi (Ind) 2.5; Enamul Hossain (Ban) 1.5 lost to P. Mahesh Chandran (Ind) 2.5; Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban) 1.5 lost to Ponnuswamy Konguvel (Ind) 2.5; Rahul Shetty (Ind) 2 bt Vikramjit Singh (Ind) 1.5; Somak Palit (Ind) 1.5 drew with Dinesh Kumar Sharma (Ind) 1.5; P.D.S. Girinath (Ind) 1 lost to Deep Sengupta (Ind) 2; Krishna Thapa (Nep) 2 bt Aarthie Ramaswami (Ind) 0.5; Suvrajit Saha (Ind) 1.5 bt Rahul Sangma (Ind) 0.5; Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (Ind) 1 vs. Shayestah Gader Pour (Iri) 1 (did not play).

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