June too hot for Sasikiran

UDAIPUR, JAN 13: Chinese GM Xu June emerged sole leader by outplaying IM K Sasikiran in 48 moves in the Asian Chess Championship at Ghas G...

UDAIPUR, JAN 13: Chinese GM Xu June emerged sole leader by outplaying IM K Sasikiran in 48 moves in the Asian Chess Championship at Ghas Ghar, City Palace here on Thursday.

After the end of the fourth round, Chinese GM Xu June got full points while top seed Peng Xiomin of China was held by Vietnam8217;s Dao Thien Hai in Grun Feld Defence. In the women8217;s section, top seed Ken Kaniving WGM of China beat team-mate Wang Pin in 34 moves. Sasikiran, the Asian junior champion, had brilliantly held highly-rated Grandmaster Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam to a draw in the third round. The marathon 75-move game had ensured Sasikiran stayed abreast with Dao Thien Hai, GM Peng Xiaomin and Xu at the top with 2.5 points. But he could not repeat the form against Xu, and had to give up the lead.

Other results Men: SS Ganguly drew Zhang Zhong China, Wang Zili China bt Ghem Meghami, R B Ramesh drew GM Yuldashay Uzb, Vihidiv Tai Uzb drew Kavumov Dimitry, Zia-ur-Rahman Bangla drew Reefat Bin Satar, Dibyendu Barua btJamshed Tzk, D V Prasad drew Wv Wengin China, Abhijit Kunte drew N Sudhakar Babu, Pravin Thipsay bt Razaei Saravi Reza Iran, G B Prakash bt Timothy Reilly Aus.

Women: Bhagyashree Thipsay bt Safira Shanaz, Swati Ghate bt Tania Sachdev, Fu Xu Vanyuan China bt Vinitha Vijasurya, Rani Hamid Bangla bt Siti Zulaika, Saheli Dhar Barua drew Tanima Parveen Bangladesh.

ANAND commences hunt: Viswananthan Anand will commence his hunt for the top spot in the new millennium in the Corus Chess tournament at Wijk Aan Zee, Holland, from January 14-30. The Indian Grandmaster Elo 2771 will be playing his first classical chess tournament in five months. He has been training in Spain. He had finished runner up to Garry Kasparov in this tournament last year.

VENKATRAMANA UP: J Venkataramana of ICF maintained half-a-point lead with a long battled-out draw against BT Muralikrishna of Railways in the ninth round of the fourth Global Trust Bank Fide-rated All-India open chess tournament inHyderabad on Thursday.

Results 9th round: J Venkataramana 8 drew BT Muralikrishnan 7.5; NK Mishra 7 drew Koshy Varghese 7.5; Vishal Sareen 7 drew Tejas Bakre 7; Santosh Kumar Sinha 7.5 bt A Sankar 6.5; P Konguvel 6.5 drew Alatu Chatterjee 7; Atanu Lahiri 7 bt SC Subramanian 6; R Balasubramanian 6 lost to Suvrajit Saha 7; TS Ravi 7 bt Amardip S Bartakke 6; Jayant Gokhale 7 bt Negi VS 6; SS Soman 7 bt Rupesh Kant 6.