Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran cruised to a fine victory over Grandmaster Konstantin Landa of Russia [Images] in the fifth round of the 'A1' section, at the Aeroflot Open chess tournament in Moscow [Images].

Sasikiran, with 3.5 points, is joint-second behind a pack of five players, including Vladimir Akopian of Armenia, who are joint leaders on four points each.

Sandipan Chanda has three points after drawing his fifth round game against Alexei Fedorov of Belarus while National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly, after his first win in the event, has two points to his credit.

International Master and double GM norm holder Neelotpal Das stayed on course for what would be his final GM norm, after defeating IM L Victor Ivanov of Russia in a keenly-contested game.

The victory took Das to four points of a possible five for a joint-third spot behind two leaders, who are on 4.5 points, in the 'A2' section, being held simultaneously.

The Kolkata-based player now meets a few Grandmasters in the remaining three rounds and needs to score decently to become the next Grandmaster of the country.

However, the norm aspirations of young Indians suffered a setback in this section as Parimarjna Negi, Deep Sengupta and Abhijeet Gupta tasted defeats in the fifth round.

Negi was beaten by GM Valeri Yandemirov of Russia while Italian GM Michele Godena proved too strong for Sengupta and Gupta could not quite compete against Vladimir Dobrov of Russia.

All the three youngsters remained on 2.5 points after the debacle and now need to score heavily in the remaining four rounds to remain in contention for the GM norm.

The US $175000 event is being played under Swiss rules of FIDE with nine rounds in each of the four groups.

Sasikiran displayed fine form to beat Landa, who employed the Nimzo Indian defense as black. Playing the Rubenstein variation, Sasikiran refused a draw proposal by his opponent on the 16th move and launched a direct attack against the king to romp home after 37 moves.

Ganguly finally found his magical touch to beat Artashes Minasian of Armenia. Ganguly, who had not won a single game thus far in the event, was a relived man after the victory that took him to 2 points.

Chanda drew with Fedorov in a King's Indian defense game while Ganguly got the better of Minasian in other important games involving Indians in round 5 of group 'A1'.

Negi was a bit unlucky in losing to Yandemirov in a side variation of the Sicilian defense. He got a reasonable position out of the opening with lots of attacking possibilities, but with his clock ticking away the 13-year-old failed to a way to force a draw and went on to lose the game.

Gupta was comprehensively beaten by Dobrov in an English opening game in which the former played black. After quick exchanges in the opening, the ensuing endgame favoured the Russian a little and an erroneous plan by the Indian led to a forced win for white.

Important and Indian results round 5 (Indians unless specified):

Group 'A1': Akopian Vladimir (Arm, 4) drew with Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 4); Evgeny Alekseev (Rus, 4) drew with Mamedyarov Shakriyar (Aze, 3.5); Vladimir Malakhov (Rus, 4) beat Sergei Dyachkov (Rus, 3); Arkadij Naiditsch (Ger, 3) lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave(Fra, 4); Robert Kempinski (Pol, 3.5) drew with Kiril Georgiev (Bul, 3.5); Krishnan Sasikiran  (3.5) beat Konstatin Landa (Rus, 2.5); Sandipan Chanda (3) drew with Alexi Fedorov (Blr, 3); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2) beat Artashes Minasian (Arm, 1).

Group 'A2': Neelotpal Das (4) beat L Victor Ivanov (Rus, 3); Vladimir Dobrov (Rus, 3.5) beat Abhijeet Gupta (2.5); Michele Godena (Ita, 3.5) beat Deep Sengupta (2.5); Valeri Yandemirov (Rus, 3.5) beat Parimarjan Negi (2.5 ); R B Ramesh (3) beat Daniil Lintchevski (Rus, 2); R R Laxman (2) lost to Ahmed Adly (Egy, 3); Sergei Beshukov (Rus, 2.5) drew with Vishal Sareen (2.5); Tigran Kotanjian (Arm, 1.5) lost to Argyhyadip Das (2.5); S Poobesh Anand (1.5) lost to Semen Virovlansky (Rus, 2.5); P Konguvel (2) drew with Aleksandr Rakhmanov (Rus, 2); Sergiy Zavgorodniy (Ukr, 1) lost to Himanshu Sharma (2).

Group 'B' round 6: Arman Hayrapetian (Arm, 4.5) drew with Prathmesh Mokal (4.5); Monika Tsiganova (Est, 3.5) beat Saptarshi Roy Chowdhary (2.5 ); Dinesh K Sharma (2.5) lost to Wenjun Ju (Chn, 3.5); N Srinath (1.5) lost to Anatolij Noskov (Kaz, 2.5).

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