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Saravanan shocks Armenian GM

V Saravanan of India shocked Armenian Grandmaster Karen Maosziszian in the fourth round of the Benasque (Spain) Open International Chess Tournament, on Friday.

On a day marked by intense battles, Saravanan's compatriot Neelotpal Das yet again underlined his class by holding GM Felix Izeta of Spain to a draw.

Playing black, Saravanan faced the closed Sicilian variation, and the game developed into a positional struggle where white had a passively placed high square bishop.

At one point, the GM was forced to sacrifice an exchange and Saravanan, in his turn, sacrificed a pawn to spark a mating attack on the white king.

Maosziszian tried to complicate the position in a time scramble, but gave up when faced with a mating threat after 38 moves.

The win gives Saravanan four points in as many rounds.

Also on four points is India's international master Sasikiran, who scored a marathon 82-move win over the unrated Joseph Sanchezy of Spain.

Under pressure for the most part, Sasikaran turned the tables in an interesting endgame where he had two rooks and a knight against his opponent’s queen. Sanchezy finally lost his race against the clock.

Neelotpal (3.5 points from four rounds) meanwhile faced the Caro Kann defence, and managed to neutralise the position, finding the rook and pawn endgame that resulted in a draw.

Other Indian winners in the fourth round were Konguvel (3.5) and Roktim Bandyopadhyay (3), who defeated Pes Mateo and Marco Catala respectively.

Offsetting the wins were two Indian losses. Sandipan Chanda's (2.5) knight sacrifice failed to earn dividends against GM Saltaev in a Sicivan Vetimirovic attack. Rahul Shetty (2) meanwhile blundered and lost, after being in a superior position against Ramos Fernandez of Spain.

After the fourth round, 12 players are on top of the table with four points apiece: GMs Granda Zuniga, G. Glorgadze, A. Kuzmin, Ubilava, Nataf, Cifuentes, Pavlovic, and Campora Conques, and IMs Cosma, S. Sasikiran, and S. Saravanan.

Agencies