Sasikiran holds Karjakin in World Chess Cup

Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran kept himself in the hunt by holding Sergey Karjakin of Russia to a draw in the first game of the second round of World Chess Cup here.
After beating Romanian Constantin Lupulescu in the tiebreak games, Sasikiran took it easy in the first encounter of the two-game mini-match and gave little chance to Karjakin, ranked ninth in the world currently.
Grandmaster B Adhiban, however, could not make use of a good advantage and drew with Brazilian GM Alexander Fier after an opening tussle.
After a few surprises in the opener, most of the higher ranked players got off to a good start in the first game of second round in this USD 1.6 million knock-out event.

The day saw top players like Alexander Morozevich and Alexander Grischuk of Russia, Gata Kamsky of United States, Anish Giri of Holland and Fabiano Caruana of Italy registering victories over lower rated opponents.
Julio Granda Zuniga of Peru, however, sprang a major surprise defeating Hungarian Peter Leko.

Former national champion, Sasikiran surprised Karjakin by going for the King's Indian attack as white.
Karjakin spent more time in the opening but it was clear that the Russian was well-prepared and was only trying to remember the best moves. As the middle game approached, Karjakin got his counter play rolling on the queen side and Sasikiran had to play a bit cautiously to avoid giving any leeway.

The minor pieces changed hands and when Karjakin traded the queens after which there was nothing left to fight for. The Russian proposed the draw that was accepted. The game lasted 44 moves.