CALCUTTA, Feb 7: Seasoned N Neelakantan scored a sensational victory over Grandmaster Csaba Horuath of Hungary in the second round of the ninth Goodricke International Open Chess Tournament being played at Gorky Sadan here.GM Nigel Short of England gave a fine display of his ever increasing positional game to outclass IM Norm holder GB Prakash of India in an irregular variation arising out of a Queen Pawn opening employed by the Indian with white pieces.
Maneuvering his bishops on the favourable diagonal, Short squeezed Prakash's forces to create a near zugzuang in the middlegame. Prakash called it a day when defeat became inevitable.
In a Modern defence game chosen by Horuath, Neelakantan went for an outright King side attack and left everything moving on the quenside. Horuath defended well and it appeared as though the game will be drawn when the Hungarian opened a Pandora's box of tactics.
Neelakantan found a major flaw in Horuath's analysis and unleashed a beautiful combination by sacrificing hisqueen which was a visual treat to the spectators. Neelakantan has thus moved to 1.5 points while Horuath is yet to open his account.
IM norm holder Sriram Jha unluckily went down on time against GM Phillipp Losser of Germany. Sriram played his pet opening -- Queen Pawn -- and held a clear advantage in a Bogo Indian defence opted by the Grandmaster.
By an imaginative central pawn thrust, Sriram put further pressure on his opponent by just the 15th move. However, in the time scramble, the talented Delhiite could not hold on to the position and blundered to finally lose from a drawish ending.
Former world under-10 champion, P Harikrishna, opened his account with a victory over Roktim Bandhopadhyay. Roktim fell prey to Harikrishna's fast playing style and blundered in time pressure.
Third seed GM Jonathan Speelman carved out a fine win against double IM Norm holder Shankar Roy, giving the latter a lesson on the Queen side counter attack theme in Caro Kann defence.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
