BIEL, JULY 28: Indian International Master S Konguvel salvaged some cheer for the Indian camp when he beat Mueller to record the sole Indian victory as his compatriots' fine run was halted after they ran into tough opponents in the fourth round of the Biel Open chess tournament here on Friday.IM TS Ravi and S Kidambi had to settle for draws while the more fancied RB Ramesh and V Saravanan lost their games from fairly comfortable positions.Grandmaster Sturva recorded his fourth successive win to shoot into the sole lead with 4 points.Playing with black pieces, Konguvel replied with the Sicilian defence to the Akopian variation opening of Mueller. After withstanding his opponents' initial assault he exchanged the queens and won a pawn.He advanced his `d' pawn to the sixth rank when his opponent resigned on the 45th move.International Master (elect) TS Ravi repeated Thursday's result with a quick draw against GM Cvitan. Ravi played the Akopian variation of the Sicilian and allowed Cvitan to obtain comfortable equality. The players agreed for a peaceful result after 18 moves.Young S Kidambi was also involved in a drawn encounter with IM Pikula. Kidambi played the Caro-Kann variation with black pieces and landed into slight difficulty after facing a new move from his opponent in the opening.Results: Mueller (1.5) lost to IM Konguvel (2.5); IM Ramesh (2.5) lost to GM Rashkovsky (3.5); GM Huzman (3.0) beat IM Sarvanan (2.0); IM Pikula (2.5) drew with Kidambi (2.5); TS Ravi (2.5) drew with GM Cvitan (2.5)But Pikula missed a strong continuation in the middlegame and allowed Kidambi to exchange the queens to enter into an opposite-coloured Bishop endgame where the players agreed to draw after 28 moves. Both Kidambi and TS Ravi move to 2.5 points. Ramesh got a solid advantage from the opening of Sicilia Najdorf against GM Rashkovsky and won a pawn in the middlegame. But a mistake allowed his opponent to exchange the queens and create a dangerous passed pawn on the kingside.The Indian did not counter his opponent's plan properly and lost the game in 50 moves in a double rook ending. Ramesh has 2.5 points from four rounds.Sarvanan played a theoretical novelty from the black side of the Kings Indian Gligoric variation against GM Huzman. He seemed to obtain a comfortable position with good control over the black squares when Huzman complicated things and got Sarvanan's queen for two rooks.He then went on to win the game in 41 moves that left Sarvanan with 2 points.
