Indian GM Sasikiran excels at FIDE Grand Swiss chess

INDIAN Grandmaster K Sasikiran on Monday (1) defeated Russia’s Alexandr Predke in the sixth round of the open event at the FIDE Grand Swiss chess tournament to join four other leaders.

Sasikiran beat his opponent in 53 moves in a Nimzo-Indian game late on Monday to join Iranian-French Alireza Firouzja, Latvian-Spanish Alexei Shirov, Russian Evgeniy Najer and French Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

All of them are on 4.5 points.

In the seventh round, the Indian grandmaster will meet Vachier-Lagrave on the second board.

In the women’s category, India’s D Harika drew with Georgia’s Nino Bastiashvili to move up to four points. She is in joint third place with six others. R Vaishali also drew her game.

Among other Indian men, Nihal Sarin continued with his unbeaten run, holding Czech Republic’s David Navara to a draw. He has four points after the sixth round. He is among 15 others for a share of the second place.

P Harikrishna, the highest ranked Indian in the Open field, shared a point with Germany’s Matthias Bluebaum, to take his score to 3.5 points.

In an all-Indian match, Raunak Sadhwani beat D Gukesh in 59 moves.

R Praggnanandhaa lost to Russia’s Alexa Sarana while S P Sethuraman lost to Anton Demchenko, also from Russia.

In the women’s section, Vantika Agrwal, Padmini Rout and Divya Deshmukh were beaten in their respective fixtures.

Ten Indian men and five women are in fray.

The Grand Swiss Tournament and Women’s Grand Swiss 2021 are part of the qualifications for the 2021-23 World Championship cycle. The top two finishers will qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2022.