The Hindu : Sasikiran leads Indian challenge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 18, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Sasikiran leads Indian challenge

By Our Chess Correspondent

CHENNAI, FEB. 17. Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran of ONGC, Chennai leads an ambitious group of Indians in the Aeroflot Open starting at Moscow with a record 655 players spread over the three sections. Sasikiran is seeded eleventh. Having done some training with Russian players in Moscow recently, Sasikiran should be making a splash with his fiery brand of attacking chess.

If he hits form, he has the capacity to win the tournament and move into the elite event at Dortmund. He is a feared rival in this circuit since his stupendous showing at the Istanbul Chess Olympiad of 2000.

The other Indians Grandmasters include Sandipan Chanda and Pravin Thipsay who are looking forward to improve their ratings and gain valuable experience. Lanka Ravi of ONGC, Hyderabad and Neelotpal Das of Kolkata are seeking GM norms from the 203-player Group A.

Three Indians, all seeking GM norms are in Group B and this includes IMs Tejas Bakre, Ponnuswamy Konguvel and Sundararajan Kidambi. The groupings are based on rating cut off.

Those in Group B might be expected to score heavily while those in Group A may get GM norms even if they make plus one (5/9) or plus two (5.5/9) based on their opponent's strength.

The field in the Group A is strong with Vladimir Malakhov of Russia given the top billing ahead of Alexey Dreev and Alexei Alexandrov.

Behind them are Bologan, Joel Lautier of France and former world champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia.

In terms of average chess strength, this event could run the Chess Olympiad close. The tournament runs from February 17 to 26 and there will be nine rounds. The time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed 20 moves in 60 minutes and thereafter they get 15 minutes for the rest of the moves but players would receive 30 seconds for making each move.

Indian players pairing for Tuesday's round one: Group A: K. Sasikiran v Vladimir Kosyrev (Rus), S. Chanda v Levon Aronian (Arm), P.M. Thipsay v M. Ulibin (Rus), Sergey Karjakin (Ukr) v Lanka Ravi, Neelotpal Das v Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr).

Group B: Ilusha Tsigelnitskiy (Rus) v Tejas Bakre, P. Konguvel v Ilandzis Spyridon (Gre), Umut Atakisi (Tur) v S. Kidambi.

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