Following the footprints of their more illustrious city-mates Parimarjan Negi and Tania Sachdev, Delhi teens Vaibhav Suri and Prince Bajaj pulled off creditable draws against seasoned Grandmasters during an otherwise uneventful third round action of the Parvsnath Commonwealth chess championship at the Clarks Inn, at Pacific Mall, here.
Tuesday saw 15 Indians among 21 leaders with three points each. In two surprise results from the lower boards, young Mitali Patil surprised veteran International Master Varugeese Koshy as did G. V. Sai Krishna against Pakistan’s IM Mahmood Lodhi.
Suri produced a gritty performance to hold fourth-seeded Russian GM Dmitry Kokarev in an equal position on the second board. Bajaj forced GM Abhijit Kunte to settle for a second successive draw. Once young Bajaj forcibly claimed a rook for a bishop and a pawn on the 15th move, Kunte battled for the next 30 moves to force a draw.
International Master Anup Deshmukh held 11th seeded Kazakh Rustam Khusnutdinov and former Asian junior girls champion Mary Ann Gomes proved equal to GM R. R. Laxman while most results followed the anticipated course.
Among Indian leaders, 10th seed Abhijeet Gupta, Sriram Jha, D. Harika, Tejas Bakre, Aswin Jayaram, Swapnil Dhopade, M. R. Venkatesh, Tania Sachdev and K. Ratnakaran won with varying degree of ease. Top-seed Alexey Dreev had it easy against young Ramnath Bhuvanesh on the top board. Fellow Russian Dmity Bocharov, seeded six, became the second highest rated players among the leaders after scoring over G. A. Stany.
The results (Indians unless stated):
Third round: Alexey Dreev (Rus, 3) bt Ramnath Bhuvnesh (2); Vaibhav Suri (2.5) drew with Dmitry Kokarev (Rus, 2.5); G. A. Stany (2) lost to Dmitry Bocharov (Rus, 3); Nisha Mohota (2) lost to Pavel Maletin (Rus, 3); Abhijeet Gupta (3) bt Ahmed Minhazuddin (Ban, 2); Bitan Banerjee (2) lost to Martyn Kravtis (Ukr, 3); Rustam Khusnutdinov (Kaz, 2.5) drew with Anup Deshmukh (2.5); Sriram Jha (3) bt Mehdi Hassan (Ban, 2); V. A. V. Rajesh (2) lost to Enamul Hossain (Ban, 3); Marat Dzhumaev (Ukr, 3) bt Gurpreet Pal Singh (2); G. B. Joshi (2.5) drew with M. R. Lalith Babu (2.5); D. Harika (3) bt Prasenjit Dutta (2); Shreyansh Daklia (2) lost to Tejas Bakre (2); R. R. Laxman (2.5) drew with Mary Ann Gomes (2.5); Aswin Jayaram (3) bt Bhakti Kulkarni (2); Charles de Villiers (RSA, 2) lost to Swapnil Dhopade (3); Debaraj Chatterjee (Ban, 2) lost to M. R. Venkatesh (3); Fenil Shah (2.5) drew with Anwesh Upadhyaya (2.5); Abhishek Kelkar (2.5) drew with P. Konguvel (2.5); Debashis Das (3) bt Vinay Kumar Matta (2).
