Russian takes lead in chess tournament

YEVGENY BAREYEV, the Russian grandmaster who has won the Hastings International Chess Tournament for the past two years, took the lead for the first time in this year's event by beating his compatriot Lev Polugayevsky in the fourth round yesterday, writes William Hartston.

Jonathan Speelman is in second place, half a point behind, after drawing with Matthew Sadler. Polugayevskey stood well for most of the game against Bareyev, and even after losing a pawn looked likely to draw, but a hasty decision just before the time control shed another pawn and left Barayev with a comfortably won endgame.

Scores after round four were: Bareyev 3 1/2 , Speelman 3, Nunn and Polgar 2 1/2 , Sadler 2, Crouch and Polugayevsky 1, Gurevich 1/2 .

In the Challengers Tournament, Ruslan Sherbakov of Russia lost in 10 moves to Colin McNab of Scotland.