The Hindu : Lanka Ravi holds Sarunas Sulskis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 22, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Lanka Ravi holds Sarunas Sulskis

CHENNAI, FEB. 21 International Master Lanka Ravi of ONGC, Hyderabad kept going by holding higher rated grandmaster Sarunas Sulskis of Lithuania to a creditable draw in the fourth round of the Aeroflot Open chess tournament being played at Hotel Russia in Moscow on Friday.

Veteran Grandmaster Praveen Thipsay of Union Bank of India, Mumbai scored his first victory when he overcame higher rated grandmaster Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan to move to 1.5 points. Except for this victory, Indians hit a low with K. Sasikiran and Neelotpal Das suffering defeats from the black side.

Vasilios Kotronias of Cyprus beat Sasikiran with the white pieces to join the leaders platform with 3.5 points. Nine players including French star Etiene Bacrot and Dutchman Loek Van Wely are in the lead with 3.5 points from four rounds. Five more rounds remain to be played in this section.

Ravi who had shocked two grandmasters in successive rounds, cooled his excitement by making a draw with the white pieces against Sarunas Sulskis to take his points tally to 2.5, the same as Krishnan Sasikiran. Ravi will be facing his fifth straight grandmaster, Evgeny Pigusov with the black pieces in the fifth round.

In the Group B open tournament, second seed Tejas Bakre scored a victory with the black pieces to move to the joint sixth place on four points. Beniamin Galstian of Armenia is leading this section with full five points. Konguvel has recovered from his cold start by defeating higher seeded Russian international master Andrey Gutov while his Chennai colleague Kidambi lost to a lower rated Ukrainian international master E.Piankov.

The results:

Round four (Group A): L.Van Wely (Ned) 3.5 drew with A.Rustemov (Rus) 3.5; Valery Filippov (Rus) 3.5 drew with K.Sakaev (Rus) 3; J.Ehlvest (Est) 3 drew with V.Malakhov (Rus) 3; Vasilios Kotronias (Cyp) 3.5 bt K.Sasikiran 2.5; Artashes Minasian (Arm) 3 bt Neelotpal Das 2; L.Ravi 2.5 drew with Sarunas Sulskis (Ltu) 2.5; N.Al-Sayed (Qat) 1.5 drew with S.Chanda 1.5; G.Guseinov (Aze) 0.5 lost to P.M.Thipsay 1.5.

Round five (Group B): N.Ogloblin (Rus) 4 lost to B.Galstian (Arm) 5; Maxim L.Orlinkov (Rus) 3 lost to Tejas Bakre 4; Andrey Gutov (Rus) 2.5 lost to P.Konguvel 3.5; H.Abbasifar (Iri) 3 drew with D.K.Sharma 3; E.Piankov (Ukr) 3 bt S. Kidambi 2.

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