Mixed bag for India

BIEL, JULY 26: It was a day of mixed fortunes for the Indians in the second round of the Biel Open Chess Tournament here. International Master RB Ramesh won his game and IM-elect TS Ravi and young S Kidambi drew against highly rated IM Radjabov and GM Kempinski respectively while IMs Sarvanan and Konguvel went down to IM Pikula and GM Klovans respectively.

Ramesh played aggressively against Ernst Heinz8217;s Centre Counter opening. The players castled on the opposite wings and Ramesh opened the opponenets King position first and checkmated him on the 24th and move to 2 points. Kidambi held GM Robert Kempinski to a creditable draw with black pieces and fixed a rare move from his opponent quite early in the opening. In an unclear middlegame, Kempinski allowed Kidambi to get a slightly better position and repeated moves.

Kidambi, not in a mood to test his opponent, took the draw by the 25th move. Ravi also did well to hold highly-rated IM Radjabov to a draw. Ravi played the French Tarasch variation and hurled his kingside pawns at his opponent with his King still in the centre. The position remained unclear and both players were nearing the first time-control, decided to play it safe by repeating the moves and drew the game in 30 moves.