Sasikiran suffers first loss

Photo: David Llada

Grandmaster Sasikiran Krishnan suffered his first defeat in the seventh round of Aeroflot Open 2019 underway at Hotel Cosmos, Moscow, Russia. With two rounds to go, he shares joint-lead with three more grandmasters on 5.5/7 points. Four players are trailing behind the leaders with 5.0 points.

In the sixth round, Sasikiran signed the peace treaty with Iranian GM Amin Tabatabaei in 23 moves to extend his solo lead in the ‘Category A’ tournament. However, in the seventh round game, GM Haik Martirosyan of Armenia got a comfortable position out of the opening and began to press for the advantage and soon, his pieces began flooding in.

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Other Indians in the fray, GM S.L Narayanan lost to GM Sarana Alexey of Russia while GM Vaibhav Suri held higher-rated  Russian GM Vladimir Fedoseev to a fighting draw in the seventh round.

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The Indian derby between GM Nihal Sarin and GM Praggnanandhaa R. ended in Nihal’s favor after the 14-year-old kept pressing in an equal position to squeeze out a win.

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Yesterday, the Top Indian Grandmasters Surya Shekhar Ganguly (born: 24-02-1983) and S.P Sethuraman (born: 25-02-1993) celebrated their respecitve birthdays together with the Indian Contingent.

Pairings

Round 8