Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran suffered a shocking endgame defeat against GM Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia in the second round of Aerosvit International Chess tournament in Yalta, Yukraine, on Tuesday.
Sasikiran, who started off with a rocking victory over Alexander Onsichuk of the United States, was completely out of sorts against Jakovenko and lost a theoretically drawn rook and pawns endgame after a long battle.
Alexei Shirov of Spain, meanwhile, emerged sole leader with his second successive triumph in the tournament. On the receiving end was Lenier Dominguez of Cuba, who was outdone in a complex middle game.
Shirov took his tally to 2 points with his second successive victory and is now followed by Vassily Ivanchuk and Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine and Jakovenko, who all have 1.5 points apiece.
With nine rounds remaining in the 12-player round-robin tournament, Sasikiran is in joint fifth place with one point, alongside top seed Peter Svidler of Russia, Dominiguez and Onischuk.
After a rather calm opening day that produced just three decisive games out of four, caution was thrown to the wind by almost all players as the second round produced as many as five decisive games.
Apart from Shirov and Jakovenko, Ivanchuk, Karjakin and Onischuk were the other winners while the lone drawn game of the day was between Russians Sergei Rublevsky and Svidler.
© 2024 Rediff.com -