Vladimirov, Sasikiran chalk out wins

Vladimirov, one time second of Garry Kasporov, relied on his experience to come back from a minus position against IM Reefat Bin Sattar (Bangladesh). He opened up the game with a queen pawn, which was met out by Reefat’s double Fianchiatto line. During the middle game, the GM was forced to part with his rook for his opponents knight. Unnerved by the loss of an exchange, Vladimirov created an outside `h’ passer in a rook and knight versus double rook endgame, demonstrating a masterly ending to register a victory in 89 moves.

In a long-drawn battle between two Indian GM’s K Sasikiran and Dibyendu Barua, the former employed Queen’s gambit variation with white pieces. Sasikiran manouvered his pieces beautifully, resulting in Barua losing two pawns. Adding to Barua’s misery was his acute time trouble, which was fully capitalised by Sasikiran. In the ensuing rook and bishop endings with two pawns up, the former National champion scored a full point in his 73rd move. Harikrishna obtained a draw against GM Saidali Yuldache (Uzbekistan) in a King’s Indian defence `g3′ system. He mounted a heavy attack on the kingside, forcing his opponent on the defensive, thwarting white’s attempt to sneak into the kingside. When it could not be predicted who would be the winner in a double-edged position, they exchanged all pieces, leaving only queen and bishop and found that both kings were in an exposed condition, leading to perpetual check. The players then split points in 56 moves.

Calcutta’s Sandipan Chandan and S S Ganguly of Goodricke Chess Academy played it out to a draw after the position reached a theoritically drawn Philidor position of rook and dawn ending. The opening was a Queen’s Indian defence game.

Russian GM Alexander Fominyh tried in vain to defeat GM norm holder G B Prakash. In a queen pawn game, Prakash adopted queen’s Gambit, which was accepted by black. Prakash piled up his pieces on the `d’ File, but the Super GM neutralised his opponent’s advantage by a single knight move. The GM combined his queen and rook to tame the king, which was negated by Prakash and the game ended in a draw after 46 moves.

Abhijit Kunte and D V Prasad settled for a short draw in just 23 moves.

Results: E Vladimirov (1) bt Reefat Bin Sattar (0); A Kunte (0.5) drew with D V Prasad (0.5); K Sasikiran (1) bt D Barua (0); G B Prakash (0.5) drew with A Fominyh (0.5) (Russia); P Harikirhsna (0.5) drew with S Yuldachev (Uzbek) (0.5); Ghaem Maghami (Iran) Bye. Rohit shocks Gopalakrishna
CHENNAI: Schoolboy G Rohit created a major upset in the second round, defeating FIDE rated K Gopalakrishna in just 25 moves in the ONGC sponsored FIDE rating open chess tournament, running concurrently along with the GM tournament.

Former Andhra Pradesh state champion J Ramakrishna was also forced to split a point against Chennai girl H Nilavoli. Despite these two results, all the top seeds, including IM N Sudhakar Babu and WFM Saheli Barua scored fluent wins over their opponents.

Important results (Round two): N Sudhakar Babu (2) bt BMohana Krishnan (1); R Janakiraman (1) lost to Ebenezer J (2); Saheli Barua (2) bt G K Narayanan (1); G Rohit (2) bt K Gopal (1); J Ramakrishna (1.5) drew with H Nilavoli (1.5); Tarun Murali (1) lost to R Siddarth (2); V Vaidhyanathan (1) lost to S Sujatha (2); J E Kavitha (2) bt N Vedanth Krishnan (1); R V Venkatakrishna (2) bt P Malarselvi (1); C J Aravind (1.5) beat K Balachandar (0.5).