Abhijeet wins, Sasikiran loses again

WIJK AAN ZEE (The Netherlands): World Junior champion Abhijeet Gupta came back reckoning for top honours with a fine positional triumph over veteran Grandmaster Oleg Romanishin of Ukraine in the 9th round of the 'C' group of Corus International chess tournament.
But Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran suffered a defeat at the hands of David Navara of Czech Republic in the 'B' group to make it a mixed day for the Indian contingent.
Abhijeet took his tally to a respectable 5.5 points out of a possible nine and is now in joint third position along side Frank Holzke of Germany and David Howell of England.
The lead position remained unchanged after Tiger Hillarp Persson of Sweden played out a draw with D Harika and inched himself up to 6.5 points. The second place is held by Wesley So of Philippines who made short work of local hopeful Ali Bitalzadeh.
In the 'B' group Sasikiran will look forward to saving some of the vital elo points.
The Indian has 3 points and is playing much below his expected score. Abhijeet played his moves well to beat the experienced Romanishin. Expectedly the Ukrainian employed the Nimzo Indian and faced the Capablanca variation.
Abhijeet got a bind in the center and slowly his pieces gained in strength.
Romanishin opted to go for an inferior endgame to cut down on some pressure but ended up losing a pawn for effectively no compensation.

Sasi held by Motylev at Corus chess

WIJK AAN ZEE (The Netherlands): Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran played out a draw with Alexander Motylev in the eighth round of the 'B" group of Corus chess tournament.
Sasikiran took his tally to 3 points with the draw and it seems that the fortunes of the top seed Indian in the fray are just not changing.
Ahead of the second rest day Sasikiran again could not get much to hope for with his white pieces as Motylev kept himself in contention in a Queen pawn game and after the dust subsided the players just had a level position on board. The peace was signed in 32 moves.
It turned out to be a bad day for Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta too in the 'C' group as he went down to Grandmaster Friso Nijboer of Holland.
The loss dented Abhijeet's chances in the event considerably after Tiger Hillarp Person of Sweden managed to eek out a win against Mexican Manuel Leon Hoyos.
Persson emerged as the sole leader in this section on 6 points out of a possible eight and stretched his lead to a full point after top seed Wesley So of Philippines blundered and lost to Frank Holzke of Germany.
Wesley remained on 5 points and in sole second spot despite the disaster and Abhijeet now shares the third spot with David Howell of England and local hopeful Manuel Bosboom who played out a draw with D Harika in this round.
Playing the black side of a Ruy Lopez Abhijeet was surprised early in the opening after sacrificing a pawn and did not get a chance to recover during the remaining part of the game.
The Indian was forced to spend a lot of time in the early middle game and Nijboer increased his advantage after a couple of more inaccuracies by the Indian world junior champion.