Sasikiran wins, keeps lead

Grandmaster K Sasikiran of India kept up his winning spree to hold the top spot after the fourth round in the AICF Golden Jubilee International GM open chess championship in Kozhikode on Wednesday.

The Indian scored an emphatic victory over top seed GM Evgeny Vladimirov of Kazakhstan to take his points tally to four.

However, World junior girls' champion Koneru Humpy suffered second defeat of the tournament when she lost to V Saravanan while GM Pendyala Harikrishna escaped with a draw against M B Muraleedharan in the fourth round.

Closely followed on the second spot are GM Andrey Hariyazdanov (Russia), IM Tahir Vakhidov (Uzbekistan), Abhijit Kunte of India with 3.5 points.

International master Sekar Sahu of India who came up from the second half (accelerated pairing system) failed to obtain equality on the 20th move and lost to experienced GM Andrew of Russia in the English Opening.

IM Tahir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and GM Ehsan Maghmi of Iran scored easy win over Prathamesh Mokal and IM Lanka Ravi.

Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte scored an emphatic win over Sashikant Kotwal in the Sicilian Najdorf variation. Shashikant played the penalty of keeping his king in the centre.

GM Pendyala Harikrishna was rather lucky to escape with half a point against experienced Kerala player M B Muralidharan, in the King Indian defence. Muralidharan slowly gained the initiative in the earlier middle game, won a piece on the 62nd move but blundered away his winning chances and drew his game.

WGM S Vijayalkshmi joined in the third lot of 3 point position. She played well in the bishop and pawn ending where her out-side passer gave her victory over young G N Gopal of Kerala.

Earlier report:
Sasikiran emerges sole leader