Sharma holds GM Sorokin

Two highly respected Grandmasters Jonathan Speelman of England and Sergei Dolmatov of Russia made short work of Indian International Masters RB Ramesh and P Mithrakanth respectively. While Ramesh fell victim to some fine positional moves in a semi Slav defence game with black pieces, Mithrakanth was gradually outplayed right from the opening withwhite pieces.

The hero of the day from Indian perspective was undoubtedly Dinesh Sharma who works for Life Insurance Corporation of India. Playing with the white pieces Sharma capatilised on a slight inaccuracy by Sorokin in a Ruy Lopez defence game to get space advantage. In copy book manner, Sharma traded his bad pieces with good ones of Sorokin and held clear advantage positionally. However, in the ensuing endgame his lack of exposure to the international chess weighed heavily and the let Sorokin escape with a draw.

GM norm holder K Sasikiran, vying for his second norm here, showed character in overcoming the challenge of candidate IM Vishal Sareen in a Sicilian Scheveningen with black pieces.

The lone Indian GM in the fray Dibyendu Barua gave a lesson in the end game to IM norm holder CS Gokhale. Barua employed the Queens Gambit, declined and posted his pieces accurately in exchange variation. A few pieces got exchanged earlier in the middlegame and the game looked like heading for a tame draw whenBarua gave his central pawn for a flank one to complicate matters. Gokhale missed an exchange sacrifice and it was curtains for him.