Deadly Das defeats Dublan

Saravanan employed the closed system against the Grandmaster8217;s Sicilian Defence and had to defend an inferior endgame for a long time. Pavlovic8217;s rook and knight kept Saravanann8217;s rook and bishop tied up, defending the weaknesses in the position.

In the sixth hour of play, the game reached an amusing finale when, the number of powers being equal, Saravanan suddenly sacrificed his rook for the knight and reached a study-hike draw where the black king had no entry into white8217;s blocked pawn formation.

Das employed the Dutch set-up against Narcisso and was having a slightly inferior position in the middlegame, with weak pawns in the centre. But the IM played listlessly, allowing Das to develop a kingside attack, andfinally gave up when faced with unavoidable mate. Both IM Sasikiran 4 and IM Konguvel 3.5 had a disappointing round as they went down fighting to GMs Cifuentes Parada and Alexander Baburin respectively.

Other results: G Georgadze 5 bt Igor Nataf 4, A Kuzmin 4.5 drew Stuart Conquest 4.5, Ion Cosma 4.5 drew Elizbar Ubilava 4.5, I Rodrigues 2 lost to Rahul Shetty 3, Tzadok Dorfman 4 bt Roktim Bandyopadhyay 3, Bailo Santia 2.5 lost to Sandipan Chanda 3.5.