By Kirti Patil
Pune: FIDE Master Dhananjay S (2133 ELO points) caused the biggest upset of the 60th National Chess Championship when he defeated top seeded Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta with the black pieces. Dhananjay, representing Chhattisgarh, attacked well with his knights and got an advantage by pushing Gupta – 2625 rated on the defensive.
Dhananjay soon converted his advantage by activating his queen, and threatened unavoidable checkmate, when Gupta resigned in the third game of the 60th National Chess Championship being played at the Boxing Hall of the Balewadi Sports Complex here on Friday.
GM Abhimanyu Puranik of the (Airports Authority of India rated 2611 rated was on board 2 with black pieces. He faced a tough opponent in Hemal Karsanji Thanki of BSNL, who played a great game, with a heavy attack on Puranik’s King. GM Abhimanyu defended well and survived the attack, winning the game in the end.
GM SP Sethuraman on board 3 played a solid game with the white pieces and got an advantage right after the opening, smoothly converting his game without any issues.
GM P. Iniyan played the quickest game of the ongoing Chess Nationals amongst the top boards till now, winning his game with the white pieces in just under 2 hours. Iniyan played a sideline against his opponent Ambarish Sharma and surprised him. Sharma made a mistake on the board, and Iniyan immediately capitalized, and won the game from there.
Results (Third Round):
Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) (2) lost to Dhananjay S (Cht) (3);
Hemal Thanki (BSNL) (2) lost to Abhimanyu Puranik (AAI) (3);
Sethuraman, SP (PSPB) (3) bt John Akkarakaran (Ker) (2);
Diptayan Ghosh (Ben) (3) bt Vignesh Vemula (Tel) (2);
Kaivalya Nagare (Mah) (2.5) drew with Visakh NR (RSPB) (2.5);
Nilsu Pattnayak (ODI) (2) lost to Mitrabha Guha (Ben) (3);
Iniyan P(TN) (3) bt Ambarish Sharma (Ben) (2);
Yash Bharadia (Raj) (2) lost to Vignesh NR (RSPB) (3);
Sayantan Das (RSPB) (3) bt Harshit Pawar (DEL) (2);
Mandar Lad (Goa) (2) lost to Deep Sengupta (PSPB) (3);
Anup Shankar R (TN) (2) lost to Akash G (TN) (3);
Shriraj Bhosale (Mah) (2.5) drew with Neelash Saha (RSPB) (2.5);
Venkatesh MR (PSPB) (3) bt Naitik Mehta (Guj) (2);
BC Tripathy (Jhar) (2) lost to Anuj Shrivatri (MP) (2);
Arghyadip Das (RSPB) (3) bt Ramakrishna J (Tel) (2);
Krishna CRG (RSPB) (3) vs Kushal Jani (Guj) (2).
