By IANS
Moscow : India’s unheralded G.N. Gopal continued to torment former FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdhzanov with a second draw sending their first round match of the World Cup into a tie-breaker. Gopal, playing with black, held on for 96 moves before the game was drawn Sunday.
Four of the five Indians will have to go through the tie-breaker to earn a place in the second round.
For almost 60 moves from the time the last pair of rooks was exchanged, Gopal and Kasimdzhanov waited for the other to make a mistake with both continuing to have four pawns and a queen. No more pieces were taken from the 36th move onwards.
Gopal, rated 2520, as compared to his rivals 2690, will now meet the Ukrainian in two games over the tie-breaker.
Abhijit Kunte also held Vadim Zvjaginsev to a draw with black pieces, while Pentala Harikrishna was held to a draw by China’s lower rated Zhao Jun. Krishnan Sasikiran was unable to put it past Serge Zhigalko of Russia.
The only Indian to be eliminated was Surya Sekhar Ganguly, who after losing the first game to Sergei Tiviakov of Netherlands was unable to do better than a draw in the next and lost 0.5 to 1.5.
There were quite a few unexpected results. After losing their opening games, fancied players like Evegeny Alekseev and Ruslan Ponomariov had to win their White games in order to reach tie-breaks.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov became the first player to advance to the next stage after just an hour of play, beating Khaled Abdel Razik of Egypt 2-0.
Alecander Grischuk, Vassily Ivanchuk, Lev Aronian, Peter Svidler, and the majority of favourites followed him soon.
However, 40 players will have to continue their matches. They include Alekseev and Ponomariov, who managed to win their games in demand. Landa (rated 2676) is leaving the World Cup, just like Eljanov (2691), who drew the first game and lost the second to IM Hossain Enamulu (2514) from Bangladesh.