The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Sasikiran still ahead

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Friday, Jul 15, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Sasikiran still ahead

NEW DELHI: Top seed K. Sasikiran defeated Hungarian Grandmaster Adam Hovarth to reach 7.5 points from eight rounds and maintain his half-point lead in the Benasque International chess tournament at Benasque, Spain, on Wednesday.

Grandmaster-norm aspirant Neelotpal Das drew with Spain's Adalberto Villavicencio to share the third spot, along with 12 others, at 6.5 points.

In the ninth round, Sasikiran faces Spain's Herminio Herraiz (7), who moved to the second position after beating Bolivia's International Master Oswaldo Zambrana. Neelotpal plays Czech GM Vlastimil Jansa.

Bakre among leaders

At Oberwart, Grandmaster Tejas Bakre drew with his Georgian counterpart Davit Shengelia and continued to share the lead after the fifth round of the International Open chess tournament.

Hari stays in lead

At Tiayuan, P. Hari Krishna drew with China's Wang Yue and raised his tally to 5.5 points to stay in lead after six rounds of the second Tiayuan Grandmasters chess tournament for the Sanjin Cup on Thursday.

Hari's first draw, after five successive victories, came after 64 moves of Gruenfeld's modern exchange variation.

The joint second seed is one point ahead of China's Bu Xiangzhi, who defeated England's Luke McShane in 43 moves.

National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly defeated United States' fellow Grandmaster Dmitri Tyomkin to join favourite Vassily Ivanchuk and second seed Alexei Shirov in the lead at 5.5 points after the sixth round of the Canadian Open chess tournament at Edmonton.

Shirov ended Viktor Bologan's brief stay at the top by beating him with the black pieces, while Ivanchuk dismissed Zhe Quan.

On Thursday, in the most-awaited clash of the event, Shirov plays Ivanchuk. Ganguly, seeded five, takes on American GM Alexander Shabalov, while S Kidambi, who held fourth-seeded Ukrainian GM Alexander Moiseenko, clashes with Abhijit Kunte.

The results:

At Edmonton (sixth round): Viktor Bologan (Mol, 5) lost to Alexei Shirov (Esp, 5.5); Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 5.5) bt Zhe Quan (Can, 4.5); S. Kidambi (5) drew with Alexander Moiseenko (Ukr, 5); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (5.5) bt Dmitri Tyomkin (U.S., 4.5).

Other results (involving Indians): Igor-Alexandre Nataf (Fra, 5) bt Nisha Mohota (4); Kevin Gentes (Can, 4) lost to Abhijit Kunte (5); Steven Peter (Can, 4.5) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (4.5); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (4.5) drew with Alfred Pechisker (Can, 4.5); Sandipan Chanda (4) drew with Dale Haessel (Can, 4); Swati Ghate (3.5) lost to Kim Nguyen (Can, 4.5); William Doubleday (Can, 3.5) lost to Bhagyashree Thipsay (4.5); Anupama Gokhale (4) bt Erin Hansen (Can, 3).

At Tiayuan (sixth round): Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 3) bt Zhang Penxiang (Chn, 2); Bu Xiangzhi (Chn, 4.5) bt Luke McShane (Eng, 2); Alexander Motylev (Rus, 4.0/5) bt Zhang Zhong (Chn, 2); Ni Hua (Chn, 2/5) bt Zhao Xue (Chn, 0); Tigran Petrosian (Arm, 4) drew with Wang Hao (Chn, 2.5); Wang Yue (Chn, 3.5) drew with P. Hari Krishna (Ind, 5.5).

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