Kerala GM Narayanan invokes inner ‘Tal’, sacrifices two rooks to win in Tashkent Open

Indian Grandmaster S L Narayanan scored a brilliant win in round three of the Agzamov Memorial Tashkent Open on Saturday. The native of Thiruvananthapuram has made a solid start to the event with 2.5 points out of a possible three.

Leon Luke Mendonca, Abhimanyu Puranik, Adhiban Baskaran and fellow Keralite Nihal Sarin are some of the other leading Indian grandmasters competing in the Tashkent event.

Naryanan's victory over Russian teenager Semen Novozhilov in the third round was special for the daring double rook sacrifices.

In chess, pieces are sometimes sacrificed to gain positional or tactical advantage. However, sacrificing both the rooks, which are major pieces alongside the queen, is not common and is considered quite bold.

The late Soviet World Champion Mikhail Tal was famous for sacrificing material to win games. Called the 'Magician of Riga', Tal's aggressive style has influenced generations of chess players.

The 27-year-old Narayanan, known for his attacking style, put the Russian on the backfoot from the opening. After a series of piece exchanges, he found a tactic to force Novozhilov's King out, but it required some ambitious moves.

First up, he offered a rook to get the opponent's queen away from his line of attack before offering a second rook to push the king into the open. Threatened by an imminent checkmate, Novozhilov resigned after 27 moves. In his earlier rounds, Narayanan converted two uncomfortable positions into a win and a draw.