Sasikiran scores hard-fought victory

After a draw in the earlier round, top seed Krishnan Sasikiran found his winning ways with a hard-earned victory over International Master Andrei Deviatkin of Russia in the fourth round of the Czech Open Grandmasters chess tournament in Pardubice.

The result kept the 21-year-old Indian chess prodigy in second position behind Grandmaster Vladislav Borovikov of Ukraine, who emerged sole leader with four points after outclassing Romanian Barligras Mircea in just 24 moves.

As many as 18 players are on the heels of the leader with 3.5 points each in their kitty. Among them are Sasikiran, GM Abhjit Kunte and IM S S Ganguly.

Sasikiran had a particularly good day. It was yet another King pawn game by the National champion, with the white pieces that caught Deviatkin off guard, probably because of the fact that the Queen pawn opening has remained Sasikiran's favourite all these years.

Deviatkin opted for the Caro Kann in turn, with which the Indian is familiar, and was up against the ultra sharp Advance variation.

Going for one of the off-beat variations, Deviatkin made his intentions of an original battle clear. The players developed their pieces routinely and arrived in the middlegame with Sasikiran having a miniscule advantage after Deviatkin surrendered the Bishop pair.

The Queens were exchanged on the 37th move and Sasikiran improved his position slowly to win the endgame after 68 moves.

Double GM norm-holder Ganguly turned out to be the other Indian hero of the day as he tactically outsmarted GM Janis Kolvans of Latvia.

Playing white, Ganguly opened with the Scotch game and got a spatial advantage with a finely crafted king side manoeuvre in the middlegame.

Looking for counter attack, Klovans missed a tactical attack on the 27th move that cost him an exchange. After battling in vain for another 10 moves, Klovans resigned.

Overnight joint leader Kunte drew with GM Henrik Teske of Germany in 17 moves. Kunte employed the double fianchetto set up to counter Teske's English opening and equalised without much ado.

The peace treaty was signed at the German's behest.

GM Dibyendu Barua went down to IM Arturs Nieskas of Latvia from the white side of a Bishop's opening game.

Barua allowed his opponent to obtain a dynamically level game after the opening and had to pay heavy dividends as he went for an erroneous plan that cost him a full point after 51 moves.

Looking for his final GM norm, Sandipan Chanda was held to a draw by Vitaly Malykin of Ukrain in just 21 moves of a Semi Slav defence game.

Sandipan did not get much of a chance to complicate the matters right through the game and this turned out to be a just result. Sandipan moved to 3 points with this draw along with GM P Harikrishna who methodically outplayed Mikhail Klenburg of Israel.