The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Gopal surprises Beliavsky

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Gopal surprises Beliavsky

NEW DELHI: Teenaged Grandmaster G.N. Gopal outplayed former World junior champion and two-time winner of the Soviet championship Alexander Beliavsky in the eighth round of Gibtelecom Masters chess tournament at Gibraltar on Tuesday.

Important victory

The Kochi-lad surprised the ninth seeded Beliavasky, who now lives and represents Slovania, in 67 moves. The 54-year-old Belivasky chose an uncommon knight-move on the 12th turn of this Ruy Lopez game that followed the Zaitsev variation. An unflustered Gopal went on to advance a queenside pawn decisively while using his queen to devastating effect for an important victory of his budding career.

Gopal has five points and shares the third spot with 12 others, including Sandipan Chanda. The Kolkata GM defeated China’s Wang Yu in 63 moves.

China’s Bu Xiangzhi scored his fifth straight victory to lead the field with 7.5 points.

The results (involving Indians):

Eighth round: G.N. Gopal (6) bt Alexander Beliavsky (Slo, 5); Sandipan Chanda (6) bt Wang Yu (Chn, 5); Ole Jakobsen (Den, 4.5) drew with D. Harika (4.5).

Aarthie Ramaswamy (4) lost to Algimantas Butnorius (Ltu, 5); Kruttika Nadig (4) drew withArkadi Eremeevich Vul (Rus, 2337); N. Srinath (4.5) bt Mariano Ribon Calabia (Esp, 3.5).

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