Vijayalakshmi a step away from GM norm

HYDERABAD, JULY 22: India's International Women Master (IWM) S Vijayalakshmi not only caused a major upset defeating Grandmaster Maxim Sor...

HYDERABAD, JULY 22: India’s International Women Master (IWM) S Vijayalakshmi not only caused a major upset defeating Grandmaster Maxim Sorokin of Argentina but is just half a point away from becoming India’s first women Grandmaster norm, as top seeded Evegeny Vladimirov of Kazhakstan became the sole leader with 4.5 points edging out GM Sergey Ionov at the end of round 7 in the Wipro GM International Chess Championship played at hotel Taj Residency here on Saturday.

Women’s GM title aspirant 21-year-old Vijayalakshmi of Indian Airlines played a fine attacking game and scored a sensational victory over GM Sorokin who failed to complete 40 moves in the stipulated time and was declared lost on time by arbiter-Naseeruddin Galib on the 39th move. However, the position was also won for Viji.

With this, Vijayalakshmi has 3 points to her credit and to become India’s first WGM she just needs a half point from nine games.

In a Nimzo-Indian defence Viji sacrificed a rook on 11th move in the centre to break open the position. Later, it appeared that GM Sorokin had digested the pawn and was well set to consolidate position on queens wing.

However, Viji who was concentrating on the king side attack, found a stunning knight sacrifice on the 32th move which forced Sorokin to take time to find the defence.

On the contrary, Viji found strong moves and web a mating net and Sorokin losing on time as he made only 30 moves before overstepping. Arbiter Ghalib declared Sorokin lost on time, as Viji had two minutes left in her clock. The most thrilling game of the day was played between the topseed Kazhak GM Vladimirov and Russian GM Ionov. It was a Queen’s Indian defence where both GMs’ gave their best display of knight’s moves, in attack or defence alike. It was a treat to watch them battle it out and GM Ionov as usual coming in to time pressure.

Ionov started the complications by exchanging bishop at d4′ square to see his pawn structurer disrupted. But he found strong squires for the knights to occupy them with decisive effect.

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Though Vladimirov won the d’ pawn, he had to defend the king’s position very actively. A sudden sprut of attack saw Vladimirov giving away a knight for a mating attack on enemy king with queen rook and knight combining well to deliver check mate. Ionov fell short by one move and was declared lost on time by the arbiter Ghalib.

Russian GM A Fominyh played an instructive end game and scored a facile victory over Surya Sekhar Ganguly. GM norm aspirant DV Prasad played a hard game against in-form P Harikrishna of Wipro and drew after 22 moves.

Russian GM Fominyh gave a fine display end game technique while defeating Bengal’s youngster Ganguly.

In Neo-Grunfeld defence, Fominyh playing white had a slight plus in the opening by creating a protected passed pawn at e5′. Though Ganguly blockaded the centre finally gave in to some forced queen and knight manoeuvres of Fominyh which grabbed two pawns.

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DV Prasad-Harikrishna’s game in the advanced variation of French was very interesting and both played for a decisive result. At one stage Prasad’s position looked good, but Harikrishna’s dynamic play in the middle game after a pawn saw that opposite colour bishop ending with the rooks will emerge and later a draw was agreed on the 22nd move.

Aarthie-Sandipan’s game in the Sicilian Scheveningen was a theoretical battle, where Sandipan tried some stunts in double rook ending by sacrificing a pawn.

Aarthie intelligently played the ending and thwarted all attempts of Sandipan and drew after 46 moves.

Sasikiran and Kunte had a bye.

Results (Round seven): Aarthie Ramaswamy (1) drew with Sandipan Chanda (3); DV Prasad (3.5) drew with P Harikrishna (4); S Vijayalakshmi (3) beat Maxim Sorokin (3.5); A Fominyh (4) beat SS Ganguly (2.5); D Vladimirov (4.5) beat S Ionov (2).