ABS CBN News, Philippines
Feb 1, 2005
Sargissian assumes control in Gibraltar
By MANNY BENITEZ
TODAY Chess Columnist
Armenian Grandmaster Gabriel Sargissian (2602) outfought Asian
champion Krishnan Sasikiran (2657) of India in a sixth-round, 64-move
marathon to seize the solo lead in the Gibtele.com Masters chess
championship in the British colony of Gibraltar off Spain.
Playing White, Sargissian, who turns 22 on Thursday, had 5.0 points
from six games, just half a point ahead of nine other big stars that
included the top seed, world No. 10 Alexei Shirov of Spain, and new
US champion Hikaru Nakamura, 17.
Among the other runners-up were two former world junior champions,
Emil Sutovsky of Israel, who won the under-20 crown in 1996, and
Sargissian’s compatriot, Lev Aronian, who did it in 2002.
With his loss, Sasikiran, 24, one of the early favorites, slid down
to a tie for 11th to 29th with 18 others who each had 4.0 points.
Sargissian employed the Fianchetto variation against Sasikiran’s
Gruenfeld Defense, and managed to advance his a-pawn to the sixth
rank early on.
Gaining a big plus in mid-game complications, Sargissian soon was the
exchange up and when the end came, he had a king plus rook and pawn
against the Asian champion’s king with bishop plus two pawns.
Sasikiran resigned when he realized he could not stop White’s rook
from gobbling up his a7 pawn to clear the way for a new queen.
Meanwhile, former Cuban champion Lenier Dominguez and former world
title candidate Boris Gelfand of Israel won their first games to take
the lead in the Bermuda International, a yearly event in the former
British colony miles off the US East Coast.
Reigning world junior champion Pent Harikrishna held Giovani Vescovi
of Brazil to a draw with Black in 43 moves of a Ruy Lopez in the
third pair of the six-GM field.
Dominguez had White in downing Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine in 46
moves of a Sicilian Paulsen, while Gelfand had Black in beating
Bartlomiej Macieja of Poland.