New Delhi: Krishnan Sasikiran played out a draw with teammate Parimarjan Negi in the ninth and penultimate round of the inaugural Airports Authority of India (AAI) Grandmasters Chess tournament on Friday.
A little later Czech national champion Viktor Laznicka ended Fabiano Caruana's unbeaten run to give Sasikiran an outside chance of catching up the current leader at the top of the table. In the third game Wesley So and Hou Yifan drew in 47 moves of a Catalan.
Sasikiran's draw took him to 5.5 points after a painful start that saw him lose the first two games. He has not lost thereafter and had four wins and three draws. With Caruana at 6.5 points, Sasi has a chance of tying for first, but for that Sasi needs to beat Hou Yifan and hope for Caruana's loss to Wesley So in the final round.
The final round begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
"After the kind of a start I had this has been a good recovery," said Sasikiran. "In today's game against Negi I had a slight advantage but could not find a way for a win. A win in the final round would be a nice way to round of the tournament and it will also help my rating."
Negi's game against Sasikiran was a 48-move draw in the Anti-Meran. "It has not been a very good tournament for me. I am trying to use these last few games as a training for my future events. I hope I will be able to take some learning's from this event," said a sporting Negi, who will represent India at the World Team Chess this month in China besides the World Cup in Russia.
Laznicka was happy to have broken the horrible run in the second half of the tournament. "In the first half of the tournament I was doing fine, but suddenly in the second half things went wrong. I lost two in a row, so this win was good," said Laznicka. "A good finish will be nice and I hope I can do well in the future events in India."
Laznicka's game saw the black (Caruana) play the Kings Indian and the win for the former came in 40 moves.
Results of the 9th round: V Laznicka beat F Caruana; K Sasikiran drew with Negi P; W So drew with H Yifan
Draw for 10th and final round: F.Caruana v W.So; H.Yifan v K.Sasikiran; P.Negi v V.Laznicka.
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