Most of the results followed a predictable course, but some Grandmasters and International Masters encountered unexpected road blocks in the opening round of the 15th Delhi International Open chess tournament here on Monday.
As is expected in a Swiss League format, where the top-half of the draw plays the bottom-half, a large number of favourites duly won. But the news-makers were those who stole the thunder by punching above their weight.
Sixth seed S.L. Narayanan, Uzbekistan’s veteran Marat Dzhumaev, Egypt’s Hesham Abdelrahman, IM Atanu Lahiri, Anup Deshmukh, Polish WGM Katarzyna Toma were among those who failed to get off to winning starts.
Narayanan ran into a resolute veteran Santosh Kumar Sinha and settled for a 60-move draw. The Kerala-lad was better placed, but failed to break the defence of Sinha and eventually drew following perpetual checks.
Lalith Babu gets a walkover
After second seed M.R. Lalith Babu received a walkover, two-time National champion M. Karthikeyan had to deal with some anxious moments against local girl Vantika Agarwal who lost her way after attaining a fairly promising position.
Much before top-seeded Tajikistan GM Farrukh Amonatov needed 62 moves to overpower Aditya Mittal, Dzhumaev played only 16 moves before splitting the point with Soham Datar.
D.B. Chandra Prasad crashed to a shock 40-move loss to Aditya Basu, rated 1967.
Bangladesh’s Sherajul Kabir Mohammad surprisingly held IM S. Nitin in 60 moves, while Jitendra Kumar Chaudhary held Egyptian GM Abdulrahman Hesham in 63 moves.
Deshmukh blundered in a winning position and lost in 31 moves to lowly-rated Sambit Panda while Rakshitta Ravi, the 2015 World girls’ (under-10) champion proved equal to former Commonwealth champion IM Atanu Lahiri in 58 moves. Meanwhile, three GMs — Ukraine’s Olexandr Bortnyk, local boy Vaibhav Suri and Debashis Das — pulled out of the event.
Earlier, the event was inaugurated by Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia after Bharat Singh Chauhan, the CEO of the All India Chess Federation, announced that next year the event would carry an enhanced prize-fund of ₹77.77 lakh — a whopping raise of ₹26.70 lakh over the present purse of ₹51.51 lakh.
