Sasikiran held by Felgaer

Gibraltar: Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran missed out on his chances and was held to a draw by

Argentinean Grandmaster Ruben Felgaer in the fourth round of Tradewise Gibraltar chess tournament, while GM Deep Sengupta suffered his first defeat of the event here. After a fantastic start, Sengupta was outplayed by a highly regarded Nigel Short of England. Sengupta, thus remained on 3 points out of a possible four and Short remained in joint lead along with Nadezhda Kosintseva of Russia, who defeated Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania in her fourth round game. With two leaders in the front, four players -- top seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Vasilios Kotronias of Greece, Daniel Fridman of Germany and young Grandmaster Richard Rapport of Hungary -- share the third spot on 3.5 points each in this 126000 Pounds Sterling tournament. It turned out to be a mixed day for Indians as former World Junior Champion P Harikrishna was also held to a draw by Kaido Kulaots of Estonia. After an unexpected loss at the hands of Nadezhda in the previous round, GM Sandipan Chanda came back to his winning ways and scored over Nezad Husein Aziz of Qatar. G N Gopal also secured a victory over Mads Andersen of Denmark and so did Vaibhav Suri, D Harika and Arghyadip Das against lower-ranked opponents but Eesha Karavade was on the receiving end against Vyacheslav Ikonnikov of Russia. With six rounds still to go, Sasikiran, Harikrishna, Chanda, Sengupta and Gopal share the seventh spot with 22 others while Harika, Suri and Das are in the next group of 2.5 pointers. Sasikiran was a bit unlucky not to covert a winning endgame in to a full point against Felgaer. Playing white, the Indian faced the Slav defence and even as it was a balanced middle game, Sasikiran pressed on to win a pawn after regulation exchanges. Sasikiran moved in the right direction for a long time. However, with the clock ticking away in the final minutes of the game a blunder by Sasikiran helped Felgaer salvage a half point. The game lasted 99 moves. Sengupta cautious approach against Short proved disastrous in a French defense game where the former played white. Short showcased his acumen in the endgame by outplaying the Indian from a level position. Sengupta fought on but had to call it a day after 61 moves. Harikrishna had his chances but following the trade of Kulaots` queen for two rooks his chances slipped away in quick time. The result was a draw through repetition. Bureau Report