Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran suffered a shocking endgame defeat against GM Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia in the second round of Aerosvit International Chess tournament here on Tuesday.

Sasikiran, who started off with a rocking victory over Alexander Onsichuk of USA, was completely out of sorts against Jakovenko and lost a theoretically drawn rook and pawns endgame after a long battle.

Shirov leads
Alexei Shirov of Spain, meanwhile, emerged as the sole leader with his second successive triumph in the tournament. On the receiving end was Lenier Dominguez of Cuba who was outdone in a complex middle game.

Shirov took his tally to 2 points with his second successive victory and is now followed by Vassily Ivanchuk and Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine and Jakovenko who all have 1.5 points apiece.

With nine rounds remaining in the 12-player round-robin tournament, Sasikiran is in joint fifth spot with one point, alongside top seed Peter Svidler of Russia, Dominiguez and Onischuk.

After a rather calm opening day that produced just three decisive games out of four, caution was thrown to the winds by almost all players as the second round produced as many as five decisive games.

Ivanchuk wins
Apart from Shirov and Jakovenko, Ivanchuk, Karjakin and Onischuk were the other winners while the lone drawn game of the day was between Russians Sergei Rublevsky and Svidler.

Sasikiran was plainly unlucky as disaster struck him after defending a slightly worse middle game quite well. The Caro Kann by the Indian as black gave Jakovenko some advantage but timely exchanges led to a level rook and pawns endgame with Sasikiran having one pawn less.

However, at this point Sasikiran missed the thread of the position with his clock ticking away and went down after Jakovenko successfully won Sasikiran’s rook for his advanced passed pawn. The game lasted 72 moves.

Shirov banked on the Moller defense with black to score a fine victory over Dominiguez. Yet again, Shirov played to his strength and went for wild complications in the middle game and Dominiguez failed to find the right defense. The Spaniard won in 46 moves.

Among other winners of the day, Karjakin was most impressive in his triumph over compatriot Pavel Eljanov who played the white side of a Slav defence.

Karjakin came up with a startling opening Novelty that involved a piece sacrifice and followed it up in fine fashion to coast to his first win in the tournament in just 28 moves.

Results (round 2): Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 1.5) bt Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Rom, 0.5); Dmitry Jakovenko (Rus, 1.5) bt Krishnan Sasikiran (Ind, 1); Lenier Dominguez (Cub, 1) lt to Alexei Shirov (Esp, 2); Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 0.5) lt to Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 1.5); Sergei Rublevsky (Rus, 0.5) drew with Peter Svidler (Rus, 1); Loek Van Wely (Ned, 0) lt to Alexander Onischuk (USA, 1).