Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 23 (IANS) Indian National champion Parimarjan Negi got himself on the scoreboard with a convincing win over women’s world champion Hou Yifan of China in the second round of the inaugural Airports Authority of India (AAI) Grandmasters chess tournament here Thursday.

Negi’s win over Hou came in 32 moves at the AAI Officer’s Institute.

Top seed Fabiano Caruana of Italy and Czech champion Viktor Laznicka scored their second successive wins even as India’s Krishnan Sasikiran suffered his second loss and Filipino Wesley So his first defeat.

Sasi lost to Caruana in a complicated game lasting 45 moves where both players were in time trouble at one time. Laznicka beat Wesley So in 39 moves just before the first time control and the winner described the result as “slightly lucky”.

Interestingly, white won the games on each of the three tables and each of the six games have produced results.

At the end of two rounds, Caruana and Laznicka share the lead with perfect scores of two out of two, and Negi and Wesley have one each. Sasi and Hou are yet to score as all three games ended in a decisive manner for the second day running indicating an aggressive mindset for the young field.

Negi, who admitted he could have drawn and split the points against Caruana in the first round Wednesday, did not make any mistakes in the second round against Hou.

In a Sicilian Dragon with the Yugoslav Attack, Negi held a microscopic advantage virtually from the beginning. He held that edge and kept piling on the pressure and when Hou made the mistake on the 19th move with f6 weakening her defence, Negi knew he had the game in his pocket. He got his full point in 32 moves, when the Chinese player realised she had no chance of salvaging even half a point.

“I knew she (Hou) had made a mistake and it was a question of time,” said Negi.

“It feels good to be back in the tournament with a win. This win puts me back. After the first round I did not want to put any pressure on myself and just played according to the situation.”

Caruana, who beat Sasikiran for his second win in an Advance variation of the Caro-Kann said: “I have been somewhat lucky in both rounds. In the first round, Negi had a chance for a draw and I won and then today also my opponent (Sasi) had chances for a draw. In fact I might even have been worse at one stage. It was a complicated game and I will need to check on the computer to see what really happened and where things went wrong for him (Sasi) when I get back to the room.”

Points after two rounds:
2 points - Laznicka and Caruana;
1 - Negi, Wesley;
0 - Sasikiran and Hou

Results for second round: Fabiano Caruana (Ita) beat Krishnan Sasikiran (Ind); Viktor Laznicka (Cze) beat Wesley So (Phi); and Parimarjan Negi (Ind) beat Hou Yifan (Chn)

Draw for the third round: Hou Yifan v Fabiano Caruana; Wesley So v Parimarjan Negi; and Krishnan Sasikiran v Viktor Laznicka