Ramesh fights hard to share lead

AMSTERDAM, AUGUST 13: International Master RB Ramesh won a hard-fought victory over Konings of The Netherlands to be among the leaders wit...

AMSTERDAM, AUGUST 13: International Master RB Ramesh won a hard-fought victory over Konings of The Netherlands to be among the leaders with two points at the Lost Boys International Open Chess tournament which also saw compatriots Sunderarajan Kidambi and TS Ravi score facile wins.

Saravanan faced the Sicilian Paulsen variation with White and played agressively right from the start by advancing his kingside pawns. Milov countered by offering a centre pawn in return for Double Bishop advantage in an open position.

Though Saravanan looked to be cruising smoothly towards consolidating his material advantage, Milov opened the whites’ king position himself and used his bishop pair wisely to record a win to leave Saravanan on 1 point.

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Konguvel faced the `g3′ system against his pet Grunfeld defence from GM Paul Van Der Sterren. Paul managed to maintain consistent pressure on the black’s position on the Queenside throughout the early middlegame.

The Indian made a slight error with `e6′ to allow Sterren to enter the 7th rank with his rook and decide the game in his favour in 35 moves.

Ramesh continued his good run trying a new idea in the Kings Indian Petrosian system and couldn’t solve the opening problems successfully. Ramesh then sacrificed a pawn for activating his pieces and in the ensuing complications Konings faltered to allow Ramesh win his queen for a rook and with it the game in 40 moves.

TS Ravi and Kidambi recovered from their first rounds to post comfortable victories over their rivals.

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Ravi faced a mixture of Evans Gambit and Guico Piano opening from Hoeven of The Netherlands. He won two pawns in the opening and consolidated his position without any difficulty though his opponent had the Bishop pair as compensation.

Ravi gave back a pawn at the right time and scored a methodical victory in 50 moves.

For Kidambi, it was a quick victory with his favourite Gligoric variation against J Jens. Kidambi sacrificed an exchange to open the position in his favour and won the game comfortably to move to 1.0 point.

In a game between two Grandmasters, Hans Ree held topseed Mikhail Gurevich to a draw form the black pieces.

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Young Berkevens outplayed GM Epishin from the beginning with a neat exchange sacrifice from the white side of the Sicilian defence. In accute time trouble, Berkevens missed a mate in three moves to blunder and lose the game in 38 moves.

Important Results (Round two):

GM M. Gurevich (1.5) drew with GM Hans Ree (1.5); GM Jan Timman (1.5) drew with IM Bosch (1.5); IM Saravanan (1) lost to GM Milov (2); Wiersma (1.5) drew with GM Ivan Sokolov (1.5); GM Paul Van der Sterren (2) beat IM Konguvel (1); Konings (1) lost to IM RB Ramesh (2); Hoeven (0) lost to TS Ravi (1); Kidambi (1) beat J.Jens (0); Berkevens (1) lost to GM Epishin (2)