Surya held veteran GM Vaganian

Moscow: Grandmaster Tejas Bakre emerged the only winner on a rather average day for Indians in the second round of the International Open chess tournament here. Bakre got the better of Russian Andrey Kirusha in category A2.

In the top group, named A1, GM Krishnan Sasikiran went down to Ukrainian GM Alexander Areshchenko.

National champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly showed controlled aggression and eventually drew with veteran GM Rafael Vaganian of Armenia while GM Sandipan Chanda also signed peace with another Armenian GM Karen Asrian.

Meanwhile, six players emerged joint leaders after the second round. They are Ni Hua of China, Russians Sergey Volkov, Aleksei Loguvoi and Andrei Kharlov and Ukrainians Vassily Ivanchuk and Areschenko.

In the match against Kirusha, Bakre displayed fine attacking skills to notch up 1.5 points from two games.

However, the other Indians in the A2 were on the receiving end as former Asian junior girls? champion Tania Sachdev went down fighting to Sergei Dyachkov of Russia.

Losing their second game on the trot were Women Grandmaster Eesha Karvade and International Master S. Kidambi, who found tough customers in Mikhail Klenburg of Ukraine and Wei Chenpeng of China, respectively.

Sasikiran was outdone in a Grunfeld defence game by Areshchenko, who played black. After the opening, the Indian found himself slightly better but as the game progressed, Areshchenko was able to get the dynamic balance.

Sasikiran sacrificed an exchange in the middle game but overlooked a tactical finesse leading to a lost endgame. Areshchenko then captured the full point in 36 moves.

Ganguly played white against Vaganian and could not do much against the French defence. Going for the winawer variation, Ganguly allowed quick exchanges and found himself in a level endgame. The game lasted just 21 moves.