Kasimdzhanov wins second game

Tripoli :

Living up to his fighting qualities, Grandmaster Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan crashed through the defences of Englishman Michael Adams in the second game of the finals of the World Chess championship 2004. Kasimdzhanov struck another major surprise of the championship and now leads the six-game match 1.5-0.5. It may be recalled that coming to the finals, the Uzbek had shown the exit door to three of the top four seeds, GM Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, GM Alexander Grishchuk of Russia and GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine. On the road to victory Unlike the first game that was drawn without a real contest, the second game provided ample fireworks to keep the worldwide viewers interested till the last moment. It was another excellent result for the Uzbek, after drawing easily with black in the opening game, and now four draws in the remaining games will fetch something that he might have been very secretly hoping for - the World Champion's tag. It was a Petroff defence where nothing worked well for Adams who played black. Going for one of the popular variation, Adams was caught in a knight sortie in the middle game that ensured Kasimdzhanov a lasting advantage and he nurtured it for a long time. Even the trading of pawns at regular intervals did not help the English and Kasimdzhanov made steady progress to maintain the pressure. Missed opportunity However as the time pressure approached, Kasimdzhanov missed a simple tactical stroke and much to his relief Adams also failed to spot it on move 40 and was gradually outplayed in the ensuing rook and pawns endgame after a further little drama. Kasimdzhanov once more missed a more promising continuation. The game lasted 55 moves. In the next game, Adams has white pieces and will certainly try to do better than the first game in the match that lasted only till the 18th move. The Championship that took off on a knockout basis started with 124 players and has the winner's purse of US$ 1,00,000 in a total prize pool of a little over 1.5 million US Dollars. (PTI)