Sasikiran held by Dzhumaev

Al Ain: Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran was held to a draw by Uzbek Marat Dzhumaev in the second round of the Asian Continental chess championship here on Tuesday. After a hard-earned first round win, Sasikiran was not able to press home for more against Dzhumaev who played it very safe with his white pieces.

Employing the Scotch opening, Dzhumaev went for simplifications and Sasikiran’s temporary pawn sacrifice also failed to ignite any complexities. The game was drawn after 28 moves taking both players to 1.5 points.

Indian Grandmasters Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda, M R Lalith Babu and V Vishnu Prasanna maintained a clean slate winning their second game on the trot to be among leaders after the second round.

With seven rounds still remaining in the premier Asian tournament, Commonwealth champion Abhijeet Gupta is among those who are on the heels of the leaders with 1.5 points in his kitty. The championship is a part of next world championship cycle and top five players from here will qualify to take part in the next world chess cup.

Results:round-2 (Indians unless stated): Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (1.5) drew with Lin Chen (Chn, 1.5); Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb, 1.5) drew with K Sasikiran (1.5); S P Sethuraman (1.5) drew with Abhijit Kunte (1.5); Gundavaa Bayarsaikhan(Mgl, 1) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2); Batchuluun Tsegmed (Mgl, 1) lost to Sandipan Chanda (2); M R Lalith Babu (2) bt Lou Yiping (Chn); S L Narayanan (1) lost to Idani Pouya (Iri, 2); Jahongir Vakhidov (Uzb, 2) bt K Rathnakaran (1); Asgharzadeh M.Reza (Iri, 1) lost to V Vishnu Prasanna (2); Wang Yiye (Chn, 0.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (1.5); Nezad Husein Aziz (Qat, 1) drew with Deep Sengupta (1); G N Gopal (1) drew with Mahmood Lodhi (Pak, 1); Saiyn Zhanat (Kaz, 1) drew with D Harika (1); Xu Xiangyu (Chn, 1) drew with Debashis Das (1); Keshav Shrestha (Nep, 1) drew with M R Venkatesh (1); Koneru Humpy (1) bt Byambaa Zulzaga (Mgl, 0); Al-Hajiri Bader (Kuw, 0) lost to P Karthikeyan (1).