Sasikiran loses first game of semis

Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran suffered a setback at the hands of GM Etienne Bacrot of France as he lost the first game of the semifinals at the Olympic Capital Young Masters chess tournament here.

Double GM-norm holder International Master P Harikrishna played a fine game to beat GM Levon Aronian of Armenia in the fight for 5-8 place and went one up in the two game mini match.

Bacrot, the former youngest GM in the world, was in top form today. Playing white against Sasikiran's Queens Gambit Accepted, a surprise choice, Bacrot gained a slight advantage in the ensuing mddlegame and initiated an attack along the central files.

Sasikiran had to conjure up all his experience and skills to get a dynamically balanced structure but the weakness of the isolated Queen pawn had a telling affect as the pieces started getting exchanged.

Realising the vulnerability of his position, Sasikiran went for the King side attack after sacrificing a pawn but did not get much play as Bacrot's Knights invaded his territory to create decisive threats.

A tactical stroke soon after lessened the complexities as the pieces got exchanged in a tandem, favouring Bacrot. Sasikiran lost another pawn with a knight fork and there was no chance to recover from there. Bacrot wrapped the game in 42 moves.

In the return game tomorrow, Sasikiran will have the advantage of white pieces and will have to win in order to force the match into a tiebreak playoff.