By Kirti Patil
Pune: Top seeded Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta survived a tough opponent on Da 2 with multiple ups and down in his game, eventually winning in the endgame. His opponent, Ajay Kumar Rai (1890ELO pts) played multiple brilliant moves to not give Gupta any edge. Ultimately, the top seed showed his experience and won in the endgame in the second round match of the 60th National Chess Championship being played at the Boxing Hall of the Balewadi Sports Complex here on Thursday.
GM Abhimanyu Puranik, who recently returned from the world cup, was super confident with his play, and achieved his win by playing a brilliant attacking game with white.
GM SP Sethuraman on board 3 had a relatively tougher game, but managed to keep his cool to get an advantage in the complicated middle game. He ended up winning the game with ease in the end.
Thursday was a day of upsets as Bihar’s Reyan Md. (1818) drew with GM Vishnu Prasanna in a complicated endgame.
“I am extremely delighted to draw with a GM” exclaimed Reyan with a smile. Balkishan A (1800) defeated GM P Karthikeyan with a brilliant play on the board. Tanmay Rajbongshi (1788) drew with IM Dinesh Sharma by not giving his opponent any advantage throughout the game.
Results (Second Round):
Ajay Rai (DASCB) (1) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) (2);
Abhimanyu Puranik (AAI)(2) bt Joseph Ebenezer(TN) (1);
Swayham Das (Guj) (1) lost to Sethuraman SP (PSPB) (2);
Shadhursshaan R (TN) (1) lost to Diptayan Ghosh (Ben) (2);
Visakh NR (RSPB) (2) bt Viresh Sharnarthi (Mah)(1);
Mitrabha Guha (Ben) (2) bt Sparsh Khandelwal (Chtt) (1);
Devesh Naik (Goa) (1) lost to Iniyan P (TN) (2);
Vignesh NR (RSPB) (2) bt Aakash G (TN) (1);
Priyanshu Patil (Mah) (1) lost to Sayantan Das (RSPB) (2);
Deep Sengupta (PSPB) (2) bt Chaitanya Awadh (MP)(1);
Akash G (TN) (2) bt PradeepTiwari (DASCB) (1);
Madhvendra Sharma (MP)(1) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy J (RSPB) (2);
Neelash Saha (RSPB) (2) bt Supreetha Potluri (AP) (1);
Rupam Mukherjee (WB) (1) lost to Venkatesh MR (PSPB) (2);
Anuj Shrivatri (MP)(2) bt Shrayan Majumder(Mah)(1);
Reyan Md (Bih) (1.5pt) drew with Vishnu Prasanna V (TN) (1.5);
Srihari LR (TN) (2) bt Mihir Sarvade (Mah) (1).
Balkishan A (Kar) (2) bt Karthikeyan P (RSPB)(1).
