Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran started off with a crushing victory over Emil Harminsson of Sweden in the first round of the Sigeman Chess Tournament at Hipp Theater in Malmo, Sweden.
The first round of the Category-13 event had expected results and much to the delight of the chess buffs the opening day produced as many as four decisive games out of a possible five.
Viorel Iordachescu of Moldova, Jan Timman of the Netherlands, Jonny Hector of Sweden and Sasikiran emerged as early leaders on one point and they are followed by top seed American teenager Hikaru Nakamura and Curt Hansen of Denmark who drew a tantalizing battle amongst themselves.
Ending on the losing side were Tiger Hilarp Persson of Sweden, who was outclassed by Iordachescu, Sune Berg Hansen of Denmark, who was outdone by Hector, and Dane Davor Palo, who found his nemesis in Timman.
The 10-player round robin event is being played in two parts: the first five rounds will be held here while the remaining four will be played at Copenhagen, Denmark.
It was a cautious start by Sasikiran with black pieces in the beginning as the Indian has not quite been displaying his best form in the past few months.
However, once Sasikiran got a position to his liking he pawed Hermansson in a vice like grip and never let the advantage slip. The opening was Sasikiran's pet Brayer variation in the Ruy Lopez and it took little time for him to get the dynamic balance ticking in his favour.
A blitzkrieg in the center in the middle game followed soon after resulting a loss of pawn for Hermansson who failed to recover from the deficit.
As the technicalities remained, Sasikiran was a class act in masterminding his winning plan in the rook and pawns end game as Hermansson haplessly watched Sasikiran's King marching to the heart of his defences and doing the damage in quick time thereafter.
Even though the game lasted till move 74, the result was anyone's guess after move 50 itself.
Even though Sasikiran was very impressive, oldest participant Timman recorded the most flamboyant victory of the day with his white pieces against Palo in an English opening game.
Taking the game to unexplored territories in the middle game, Timman was quick to pounce on an opportunity to enter a better rooks end game and knocked down one pawn on the king side to romp home in 46 moves.
Iordachescu had less hard work to do against Persson who was once regarded as a tactical genius.
The Pirc defence by the Swede gave Iordachescu an easy advantage in form of space control in the middle game and the latter nurtured it quite well to come out on top after a simple oversight by his opponent that netted a rook for knight. The game lasted 39 moves.
Hector had to use all his experience against Sune Berg Hansen. Playing the black side of a closed Ruy Lopez, Hector effortlessly seized the initiative after an erroneous plan by Hansen but in the ensuing end game his technique deserted him for quite sometime.
However, as the proceedings never quite went out of control, the Swede was able to strike upon the right manoeuvre in the final stages of the 90-move saga.
Nakamura had a slightly indifferent first game but his moves showed that he is in terrific touch.
The Slav defence by Curt Hansen did not pose any troubles and Nakamura pressed hard for the advantage after parting with a pawn in the opening itself.
Hansen for his part did well to find resources in a wild position and even though he was an exchange up in final position, there were no winning chances for either player. The truce was signed on move 41.
Pairings, Round 1: Emil Hermansson (Swe, 2432) lost to Krishnan Sasikiran (Ind, 2642); Viorel Iordachescu (Mda, 2609) beat Tiger Hillarp Persson (Swe, 2533); Sune Berg Hansen (Den, 2553) lost to Jonny Hector (Swe, 2513); Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2657) drew with Curt Hansen (Den, 2633); Jan Timman (Ned, 2607) beat Davor Palo (Den, 2525).