Sunday, January 25, 2009

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 champ
ion.

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