Paks: Continuing with his late-found form, Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran beat former world junior champion Peter Acs in the ninth and penultimate round of the third Marx Gyorgy Memorial Grandmasters chess tournament here.

Striking back with vengeance after a disastrous loss against Sasikiran, GM Zoltan Almasi of Hungary emerged as the sole leader after beating 74-year-old Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland.

For the second day running, Hungarian Ferenc Berkes also emerged winner, accounting for top seed Emil Sutovsky of Israel.

With just one round remaining in the category-15 double round robin tournament, Almasi took his tally to six points out of a possible nine and was now trailed by Korchnoi, who was half a point behind.

Sasikiran kept his third spot intact with five points with Berkes close behind on 4.5. Sutovsky and Acs remained on three points each and were now set to fill up the last two slots in the six-player event.

In the final round game, Almasi is set to play Acs as white and needs just a draw to finish joint first.

The fight for the second place has, in fact, heated up now with Korchnoi, who started off brilliantly, losing steam towards the end.

The Swiss has to tackle a dangerous Sutolvsky, who has black in his last game, while Sasikrian will play with white against Berkes.

Winning with black pieces was certainly not an easy task at the highest level and Sasikiran accomplished that feat for the second day running. Playing the Tchigorin variation in the Ruy Lopez, the Indian solved his opening problems even as Acs got some pieces rolling first in the centre, and then for a brief period, on the queenside.

However, the Hungarian misjudged the position arising after loss of a pawn and Sasikiran quickly got into the groove and guided his forces to defend the king side.

Acs had little hopes left after Sasikiran exchanged the queens to reach an opposite colour bishops endgame. Acs resigned when faced with further loss of material.

Almasi played with a lot of patience to beat Korchnoi in a keenly-contested game. With black. Almasi had things under control in the middle game when Korchnoi overestimated his chances.

The Hungarian sacrificed an exchange for positional compensation and another error by Korchnoi resulted in a double-passed pawn for black in the middle of the board. (PTI)