The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Sasikiran on top

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Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008
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Sasikiran on top

CHENNAI: India’s K. Sasikiran is sitting pretty after the end of the sixth and penultimate round in the 19th City of Pamplona international chess tournament in Northern Spain on Sunday.

Posting his third win in a row, the top seed from Chennai is leading the Category 16 (average Elo 2644) tournament by one point with one round still to be played.

Sasikiran was brilliant from move 28 onwards as he scored an unconventional attacking win against the second seed Michael Roiz of Israel to move to 4.5 points. Vladimir Malakhov (Rus) and Francisco Vallejo (Esp) are behind him.

Rating performance up

Sasikiran needs a draw with the black pieces against Aleksander Delchev of Bulgaria in the final round for a clear title on Monday.

This splendid result so far has pushed Sasikiran’s rating performance to a whopping 2831.

After remaining quiet in the first three games, Sasikiran starting winning from Boxing Day onwards and beat GMs Fabiano Caruana (Ita), Francisco Vallejo (Esp) and Michael Roiz (Isr).

In the first three games he drew with Vladimir Malakhov (Rus), Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus) and Ivan Salgado (Esp).

India had a podium finish in this event in 2005 when P. Harikrishna finished second to Ruslan Ponomariov. — Arvind Aaron

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