Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran suffered a defeat in dramatic circumstances at the hands of top seed Emil Sutovsky of Israel in the second round of the 3rd Marx Gyorgy Memorial Grandmasters chess tournament in Paks, Hungary.
After a none-too-eventful first round, which saw draws on all boards, things livened up in the category-15 six-player double round robin event as the day produced all decisive games.
Legendary Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland scored a crushing victory over former world junior champion Peter Acs of Hungary while the all-Hungarian contest between Zoltan Almasi and Ferenc Berkes ended in favour of the former who showed deep opening preparation.
After the second round of the 10-round tournament, Almasi, Korchnoi and Sutovsky emerged as joint leaders on 1.5 points each while Sasikiran, Berkes and Acs are on half a point apiece.
Sasikiran's loss was shocking since he was in the position to earn half a point by forcing a draw.
But in a dramatic turn of events, Sasikiran's flag fell in a rook versus Bishop endgame after 100 moves out of which the last 25 were played with only four pieces on board.
According to the rules Sasikiran, who had successfully guided his king to the prescribed safe corner of the board, could have claimed a draw by simply stopping his clock and calling the arbiter once he was down to his last two minutes.
But the Indian did not do so and instead played on and eventually lost when he ran out of allotted time.
