Swati gets first WGM norm;
Sasikiran finishes 10th

International Woman Master Swati Ghate secured her maiden Women Grandmaster norm by outclassing WGM Irina Umanskaya of Russia in the ninth and final round of the Czech Grandmaster Open chess tournament in Pardubice on Saturday.

However, that proved to be the lone bright spot for India as top seed Krishnan Sasikran was relegated to the tenth spot in the tournament, which concluded late on Saturday night.

GM Vladislav Borovikov of Ukraine won the championship on better tie-break score after defeating GM Petr Haba of the Czech Republic with black pieces. It turned out to be a seven way tie for the top place but the three overnight leaders GMs Zbynek Hracek, Peter Acs and Dmitry Jakovenko had to be content with draws in the final round.

The others who tied for first place were GMs Ernesto Inarkiev, Valery Neverov and Vladimir Burmakin.

As the tie was resolved, Acs finished second, the third place went to Hracek while Jakovenko finished fourth.

Sasikiran played out a draw with Jakovenko in the final round. Also drawing his last round game was GM Pendyala Harikrishna, who finished 13th, while a fine finish helped Dibyendu Barua tie with his teammate on 6.5 points. Barua was declared 20th on the merit list.

Starting with an excellent victory in the first round against highly rated Mista Alexander of Poland, Swati tallied five points but the last round victory against Irina Umanskaya of Russia fetched her the long overdue norm.

Playing white, Swati opened with the king pawn and Irina found her tactical abilities too difficult to handle. In the end it proved to be an easy victory for Swati.

Sasikiran could not quite manage to complicate matters against the solid play of Jakovenko. The opening featured the Nazdorf defence and Saikiran equalised easily with black pieces. With no result in sight, Sasikiran eventually settled for a draw.

Harikrishna drew with GM Yacoov Zilberman of Israel. Playing white he faced the unorthodox Queen's Gambit Declined by his opponent and did not get a desirable advantage after the opening. Looking for complications, Harikrishna sacrificed a pawn but that only complicated the position. The peace treaty was signed in just 21 moves.

Barua defeated Jan Marcos of Slovakia in one of the side variations of the Semi Slav defence with black pieces. Marcos tried hard to prevail over Barua in the middlegame with quite a few interesting manoeuvres but the bespectacled Kolkata player held his front with his fighting ability.

In the final moments of the game, Marcos fumbled and lost in 62 moves.

IM Surya Sekhar Ganguly finished the tournament on six points after drawing with Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia in the final round.

Ganguly faced the English opening with black pieces and the game was long drawn as both pressed for victory. However, after battling it out for 82 moves, the players agreed to split the point.