The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Sasikiran strikes again; Negi loses

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 26, 2011
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Chess

Sasikiran strikes again; Negi loses

Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI: For the second straight day, K. Sasikiran struck with white pieces to wipe out the disappointment of two defeats with black pieces after Parimarjan Negi suffered his second loss in four rounds of the AAI International chess tournament here on Saturday. Sasikiran kept Hou Yifan waiting to open her account, following a 66-move victory in Classic Catalan.

After four rounds, top-seed Fabiano Caruana stayed ahead with 3.5 points, following a draw with Wesley So. Second seed Victor Laznicka inched closer to Caruana after his “lucky” victory over Negi.

At one stage, Saskiran looked like cruising for a comfortable victory until he played a rook-move that brought Yifan back in the game after 27 moves. But it was the Chinese teenager who handed the advantage back to Sasikiran with a pawn on the 36th move after coming under time-pressure.

Sasikiran, armed with an extra pawn, worked hard to squeeze out a well-deserved victory in an end-game involving a knight each and pawns. If Sasikiran won a game dotted with inaccuracies, Negi finished at the receiving end of an encounter that, too, was far from flawless.

Laznicka managed to overpower Negi in 53 moves, two turns after the local lad committed a blunder by overlooking a queen-check. Laznicka, who later said he was “not very happy” with the way he won, since the game was full of errors, managed to smile on ending up on the winning side.

“I was not very happy with my opening preparation in this game, but after Negi played some inaccurate moves in the middle game, I had some hope. I was better, but at some point, we both committed mistakes. But I must say, I was lucky to win,” said Laznicka.

Wesley So snapped the winning sequence of Caruana by holding him to a 31-move draw. This closed positional battle in Guico Piano left both players reasonably satisfied with the outcome.

After a hat-trick of wins, Caruana was fine with a draw after playing with black pieces.

“There was nothing really for me out of the opening and later, we both reached a position where neither held any advantage,” said the Italian. Wesley later revealed he went to bed last night after having prepared for Hou Yifan from the white side. It was only when Chief Arbiter M.S. Gopakumar knocked on Wesley's door at 11 a.m. on Saturday that the Filipino lad learnt that he was actually drawn to play Caruana with black pieces.

“It did not make much difference though. One good thing is that I don't have to be prepared for Yifan tonight,” said Wesley with a smile.

The results: Fourth round: So Wesley (Phi, 1.5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 3.5) in 31 moves; Victor Laznicka (Cze, 3) bt Parimarjan Negi (Ind, 1.5); K. Sasikiran (Ind, 2) bt Hou Yifan (Chn, 0).

Fifth round pairings: Caruana-Laznicka; Negi-Sasikiran; Yifan-Wesley .

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport