Sasi, Bakre, Das settle for draws

Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran was held to a draw by GM Ghaem Maghami Ehsan of Iran in a second round game in group ‘A’ in the Aeroflot international open chess meet. As many as 15 players emerged with a cent per cent score in group ‘A’ in this $150,000 event, open only to players above a rating of 2450. The tournament offers a winner’s purse of $25,000.

Young GM Etinne Bacrot of France, Loek van Wely of the Netherlands, Konstantin Sakev of Russia and world junior champion Shakhriyaz Mamedyarov are amongst those in the lead. But in close pursuit are the likes of Russians Vladimir Malakhov and Alexei Dreev and Sasikiran who remain just a half point adrift of the leading group.

As many as 60 players are on the heels of the 15 leaders. The other Indians in the fray in this group, however, had a tough day barring International Master Lanka Ravi who beat GM Sergey Zagrebelny of Uzbekistan.

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Praveen Thipsay sufered a reversal at the hands of Artashes Minasian of Armenia while Chinese Zhang Zhong defeated Sandipan Chanda.

Settling for the peace was GM norm seeker Neelotpal Das who drew with GM Aleksei Lugovoi of Russia. This was Neelotpal’s second successive draw.

In group ‘B’, the Indians had mixed results as one of the favourties, Tejas Bakre drew with much lower-rated Lazar Beklarjan of Russia.