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Chess: Sargissian assumes control in Gibraltar

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  • Chess: Sargissian assumes control in Gibraltar

    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.
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