Second seeded Grandmaster K. Sasikiran and teenaged International Master S. P. Sethuraman were among the nine leaders after two rounds of the Asian chess championship at Subic Bay, in the Philippines, on Thursday.
However, fifth seed P. Hari Krishna was among the first round losers headed by top-seeded Vietnamese Le Quang Liem who surrendered to Kazakhstan’s Kirill Kuderinov.
In the ladies section, Kiran Manisha Mohanty caused a flutter by holding top-seeded Chinese Ju Wenjun. However, the other two Indian entries, Woman Grandmasters Tania Sachdev and Subbaraman Meenakshi, seeded three and four, had mixed results.
Tania lost the first round and won the second while Meenakshi drew with lower seeded Iranian rival before losing to the top-seeded Chinese.
The results (involving Indians):
Second round: Open: Homayoon Toufighi (Iri, 1) lost to K. Sasikiran (2);. G. N. Gopal (1.5) drew with Asghar Golizadeh (Iri, 1.5); Zhou Weiqi (Chn, 1.5) drew with Neelotpal Das (1.5); Oliver Barbosa (Phi, 2) bt Abhijeet Gupta (1); Padmini Rout (1) lost to S. P. Sethuraman (2); S. Kidambi (1) drew with Duong The Anh (Vie, 1); B. Adhiban (10 drew with Jony Habla (Phi, 1); Nelson Iii Mariano (Phi, 0.5) lost to Tejas Bakre (1.5); P. Hari Krishna (1) bt Wang Li (Chn, 0); D. Harika (0.5) drew with Julius de Ramos (0.5).
Women: Ju Wenjun (Chn, 1.5) bt Subbaraman Meenakshi (0.5); Ghazal Hakimifard (Iri, 1) drew with Kiran Manisha Mohanty (1); Tania Sachdev (1) bt Aices Salvador (Phi, 0).
First round: Open: Sasikiran bt Oliver Dimakiling (Phi); Lou Yiping (Chn) bt Hari Krishna; Rolando Nolte (Phi) lost to Gopal; Abhijeet bt Wang Li (Chn); Chan Wei Xuan Timothy (Sin) drew with Kidambi; Li Hanbin (Chn) drew with Adhiban; Dzhurabek Khamrakulov (Uzb) lost to Padmini Rout; Sethuraman bt Rhobel Legaspi (Phi); Allan Macala (Phi) bt Harika; Bakre drew with Yee Soon Wei (Bru); Neelotpal bt Joseph Galindo (Phi).
Women: Kiran drew with Ju Wenjun (Chn); Wang Jue (Chn) bt Tania; Meenakshi drew with Ghazal Hakimifard (Iri).
