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Underdogs slow down three GMs on opening day

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Former champion Saidali Iuldachev along with fellow Grandmasters Commonwealth champion R.B. Ramesh and Pravin Thipsay found the going tough as did several International Masters in the second round of the 6th Parsvnath International Open chess tournament here on Sunday.

Iuldachev, seeded eighth, had to settle for a 30-move draw with Nepal’s Keshav Shrestha, rated 399 points below, before Thipsay was forced to split the point by former Delhi champion Chander Pal in 54 moves of Sicilian Defence. Ramesh failed to get past Dushyant Das and finally signed peace after 89 moves.

Hours after Delhi-girl Dhara Gupta had upstaged International Master Vikramaditya Kamble to provide a sensational start to the Rs. 10-lakh event, many little known names found ways to hold IMs.

Two-time National ‘B’ champion Sriram Jha was relieved after drawing with Arvinder Preet Singh. R.R. Laxman, P. D.S. Girinath, Saptarshi Roy, Himanshu Sharma, former National champion P. Konguvel, Roktim Bandyopadhyay, and Woman Grandmasters Tania Sachdev, Mary Ann Gomes and Russian Irina Zakurdjaeva were among those who drew with lesser-rated rivals.

The results (Indians unless stated): Second round: Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri, 2) bt J. Malleswara Rao (1), Kantilal Dave (1) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2); Igor Kurnosov (Rus, 2) bt Shalendra Bajpai (1); Nepali Badri (Nep, 1) lost to Abhijit Kunte (2); Elizbar Ubilava (Esp, ) v B. Kranti Kumar (); G.A. Stany (1) lost to Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr,2); Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb, 2) bt Abid Ali (1); Keshav Shrestha (Nep, 1.5) drew with Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb,1.5); Ngyuen Anh Dung (Vie, 2) bt Sankalp Modwal (1); Meghan Gupte (1) lost to Enamul Hossain (Ban, 2); Morteza Mahjoob (Iri, 2) bt Krishna Thapa (Nep, 1); Rupankar Nath (1) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (2); Shukhrat Safin (Uzb, 2) bt Rakesh Kulkarni (1).

Debayan Majumdar (1) lost to Ziaur Rehman (Ban, 2); Aswin Jayaram (2) bt Sujendra Prasad Shrestha (Nep,1); Dushyant Das (1.5) drew with R.B. Ramesh (1.5); Pravin Thipsay (1.5) drew with Chander Pal (1.5); Sriram Jha (1.5) drew with Arvinder Preet Singh (1.5); G.V. Sai Krishna (1) lost to M. R. Venkatesh (2); Shojaat Ghane (Iri, 2) bt Abhishek Kelkar (1).

First round: Sumant Subramanium lost to Maghami; Ganguly bt Chiraranjan Bhuyan; Rishi Thariani lost to Kurnosov; Kunte bt S.K. Sharma; Sanjib Ghosh lost to Ubilava; Solodovnichenko bt Samunder Kumar; Pratik Patil lost to Dzhumaev; Iuldachev bt Rajesh Kumar Nath; Deepak Kumar lost to Dung; Hossain bt D. S. Shashank; Rajan Chhetri lost to Morteza; Abhijeet Gupta bt Priyanka Kumari; Sanjay Chhabra lost to Safin; Rahman bt Sudarshan; Jaydeep Sharma lost to Jayaram.

R.B. Ramesh bt S. Kaushik; Manjunath Jain lost to Thipsay; Batyrov drew with Johnharry Perreira; Vaibhav Khanna lost to Jha; Venkatesh bt Ram Gupta; Dinesh Gupta lost to Ghane; Kidambi bt Vigneshwaran; Kiranpal Singh lost to Laxman; Ratnakaran bt Ambesh; Biswajit Naik lost to Girinath.

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