Biel: GM Krishnan Sasikiran settled for a quick draw with GM Etienne Bacrot of France and assured himself of second place in the Grandmaster section of the Biel international chess festival.

Top seed and world No. 4 Alexander Morozevich of Russia won his back-to-back title in Biel with another fantastic victory, against local hope Yannick Pelletier. Morozevich took his tally to an unassailable seven points out of a possible nine and will now look forward to equal his last year’s performance when he had scored a whopping eight points.

Sasikiran moved to 5.5 points in this category 18 event played on a double round-robin basis between six players. However the Indian was not able to give Morozevich a run for his money in the closing stages of the tournament. While Morozevich is 1.5 points clear of Sasikiran, the Indian has a similar lead over his nearest rivals — former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, Bacrot and Pelletier — with just one round remaining.

This is by far Sasikiran’s best achievement since he won the North Sea Cup and the Politiken Open in Denmark last year.

The penultimate round was not devoid of excitement even though Sasikiran settled for a draw in just 16 moves against Bacrot who played black.

Morozevich compensated for Sasikiran’s quick draw with yet another fine game with black. Pelletier on his part played positive chess and went for a thematic castling on the queenside in the Rubenstein Variation of the French Defence.

However, in the middle-game Morozevich gained control with some deceptive manoeuvres and the Swiss came under time pressure. Picking a pawn amidst tactical complexities, Morozevich won when on 40th move when Pelletier lost on time.

Magesh beats Israel GM

In the master’s section, Asian junior champion P. Magesh Chandran came up with yet another inspired performance to beat GM Roiz Michael of Israel in a game that lasted five hours.

Magesh moved to joint fifth spot and is still in with a chance to get his second GM norm.