Second seed Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran scored yet another scintillating victory, outmanoeuvring GM Lenier Dominiguez of Cuba in the fifth round of the 18th North Sea Cup International chess tournament, now in progress in Esbjerg, Denmark.
Sasikiran and English GM Luke McShane, both of whom have four points, stretched their lead to a full point over nearest rivals -- top seed GM Alexey Dreev of Russia and Danish star Curt Hansen -- after their victories in the fifth round matches.
Danish GMs Lars Schandorff and Peter Heine Nielsen, and Poland's Michal Krasenkow share the fifth spot with 2.5 points apiece while Bruzon Lazaro was pushed down to eighth position after suffering his second successive loss in the tournament.
In ninth position is Lenier on 1.5 points while Koneru Humpy remained at the bottom of the table without any score.
Four more rounds remain to be played in this 10-player round-robin tournament.
It is the ability and the will to carry on that matters in Grandmasters' chess and Sasikiran showed that he had both in plenty. Having won a game of fluctuating fortunes against Lazaro in the previous round, Sasikiran did not show any sign of fatigue and carried on nonchalantly with his white pieces.
Dominiguez employed the Slav defence and Sasikiran managed a slightly better position as the middle game surfaced.
The Cuban had a few technicalities to take care of and he did not falter in the complexities to net a dynamically balanced endgame with just a slightly weakened pawn structure on the kingside.
Sasikiran, however, appeared to be waiting just for that as the resulting endgame did not have any fine-prints for Dominiguez and he needed to defend just accurately to salvage half a point.
As it happened, Dominiguez faltered and lost a pawn on the 46th move when the game had finally taken shape in a rook and minor piece endgame. Thereafter Sasikiran swapped another pawn and the resulting rooks and pawns endgame with two extra pawns was child's play. Dominiguez resigned on his 64th turn.
Krasenkow gave a positional lesson to Koneru Humpy whose form continued to desert her for the fifth day in a row. An irregular Queen pawn game by Humpy with white pieces only gave Krasenkow an easy equality and it took just a wee bit effort for the latter to emerge with an advantage in the middle game with a kingside pawn advance.
Humpy was forced to use up the remaining time in trying to work out a way to equalise but that did not happen either.
Krasenkow rolled his queenside pawns and maintained his stronghold with a massive central control through his pawns.
Humpy found her rook flanked and soon-to-be-trapped by the opposition pawns and called it a day after 34 moves.
If the Andhra girl does not bounce back she will end up losing a lot of important rating points.
On the othe hand, Luke McShane is looking like a man on a mission. Playing positional chess against Lazaro, the Englishman made excellent use of his better pawn structure to carve out a fine victory.
The middle game, arising out of a Ruy Lopez, had Lazaro in some difficulties as he was saddled with a perennially bad dark square Bishop after routine exchanges leading to a queen and minor piece endgame. McShane controlled the proceedings well to come up triumphs.
Dreev failed to make most of his white pieceneasy half point to Schandorff in a Queen's Indian defence game. Trading a couple of minor pieces very early in the opening, Schandorff opened the queenside with thematic counter play and the peace treaty was signed in 26 moves when the position repeated thrice. Nielsen and Hansen also played an uneventful draw lasting just 20 moves.
Results of Round 5: K Sasikiran (4) beat Lenier Dominiguez (Cub, 1.5); Luke McShane (Eng, 4) beat Bruzon Lazaro (Cub, 2); Alexey Dreev (Rus, 3) drew Lars Schandorff (Den, 2.5); Peter Heine Nielsen (Den, 2.5) drew Curt Hansen (Den, 3); Koneru Humpy (0) lost to Michal Krasenkow (Pol, 2.5).
Moves:
K Sasikiran v/s Lenier Dominiguez: 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 c6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Nc3 e6 6. h3 Bxf3 7. Qxf3 Nbd7 8.Bd3 Bb4 9. O-O O-O 10. Qd1 Qe7 11. Qb3 dxc4 12. Bxc4 Rab8 13. Bd2 e5 14. Rad1 Bd6 15. Qc2 exd4 16. exd4 Nb6 17. Bb3 Bc7 18. Qf5 Qd6 19. g3 Qd7 20. Qxd7 Nbxd7 21. d5 Nc5 22. Bc4 b5 23. Be3 bxc4 24. Bxc5 Rfe8 25. dxc6 Re6 26. Rd2 a6 27. Ba7 Rbe8 28. Bd4 Rxc6 29. Bxf6 gxf6 30. Nd5 Kf8 31. Rc2 Be5 32. Ne3 Bxg3 33. Rxc4 Rxc4 34. Nxc4 Bc7 35. Rd1 Re2 36. Rd2 Re1+ 37. Kg2 Ke7 38. Rd3 Rc1 39. Ne3 Be5 40. Ra3 Rc6 41. b3 Ke6 42. Ra4 f5 43. Ra5 Bc7 44. Rxf5 Rc1 45. Rh5 Ra1 46. Rh6+ f6 47. Rxh7 Bf4 48. a4 Rb1 49. Rb7 Bxe3 50. fxe3 Kf5 51. Kf3 Rh1 52. Rb6 Rxh3+ 53. Ke2 Rh2+ 54. Kd3 Rb2 55. a5 Ke5 56. Kc4 Rc2+ 57. Kb4 Re2 58. Rxa6 Rxe3 59. Rc6 Re1 60. a6 Ra1 61. Rc5+ Kd6 62. Rf5 Kc7 63. Rxf6 Rh1 64. Ka4 black resigned
Koneru Humpy v/s Michal Krasenkow: 1. Nf3 d6 2. d4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. O-O c6 6. Re1 Bf5 7. Nc3 d5 8. Nh4 Be6 9. Nf3 O-O 10. Bf4 Nbd7 11. Qd2 Qb6 12. a4 a5 13. Ne5 Nh5 14. Nxd7 Bxd7 15. Be3 f5 16. Bf3 Nf6 17. h3 Ne8 18. Bg2 Nd6 19. Qd3 f4 20. Bxf4 Bxd4 21. e3 Bg7 22. Ra3 e5 23. Bg5 e4 24. Qd1 Rf7 25. Rb3 Qc5 26. Ne2 b5 27. Nd4 b4 28. c3 Nc4 29. Bf4 Qe7 30. g4 c5 31. Nb5 Bxb5 32. axb5 Nb6 33. cxb4 axb4 34. Qd2 Ra4 white resigned.
