National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly struck form to defeat fellow-Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran in the seventh round of the category-16 Super Grandmasters chess section, in the Pune International Chess Festival at Le Royale Residency club on Friday.
Since the day produced just one decisive game out of five, the lead positions remained unchanged.
For the record, GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania and World champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan continue to lead the 10-player field with 4.5 points out of seven games played so far.
With just two more rounds left in the US $10,000 tournament, Indian GMs Pendyala Harikishna and Sandipan Chanda remain close on the heels of the leaders on four points.
Emil Sutovsky of Israel is another half point behind the two Indians along with Alexander Beliavsky of Slovenia and Georgian Zurab Azmaiparashvili while Sasikiran was relegated to ninth spot with just 2.5 points, a half point clear of Abhijit Kunte.
Ganguly is on 3 points.
It was not a very interesting game between two overnight leaders -- Nisipeanu and Kasimdzhanov. Obviously, taken aback by his loss against Harikrishna in the previous round game, Nisipeanu did not try too hard with his white pieces after employing the Ruy Lopez.
Kasimdzhanov had no troubles in securing the balance after routine maneouvring and a draw appeared to be a just result after a few pieces changed hands.
With the victory, Ganguly proved yet again that on a given day he can match almost anyone in world chess. The National champion has certainly picked up after a rather subdued start, caused by a few unwarranted mistakes in the first half.
A Classical Sicilian adopted by Sasikiran apparently backfired as he failed to get the complexities he was hoping for in the 60-move duel.
Ganguly took charge right from the beginning after uncorking a relatively new idea in the opening following which Sasikiran decided to part with a pawn.
"I think I was clearly better after that," said Ganguly after the game.
Sasikiran's bid for counter play did not materialise much thereafter as his opponent transposed to pawn plus endgame and slowly marched his king forward for the final blow.
Sasikiran resigned when white threatened to clean up his queenside.
Abhijit Kunte also appears to be getting back to groove.
Playing black against Azmaiparashvili's English opening, Abhijit employed a routine set-up and it took him no time to equalise comfortable after exchanging pieces at regular intervals.
In the resulting rook and pawns endgame, Azmaiparshvili tried to complicate matters but the Indian was always on guard and drew comfortably.
