Just when the first double-round day was turning out to be a disappointing one for the leading Indian seeds, Girish Koushik proved equal to top seed Farrukh Amonatov and salvaged some pride for the host in the 17th Delhi International Open chess tournament here on Thursday.
After three rounds, 23 players, including 10 Indians, shared the lead with a perfect score.
Girish, a former World under-10 champion, came up with a well-prepared continuation against Amonatov’s Kings Indian Defence.
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This positional battle, where the crowded board did not allow the players any decisive edge, drifted to a 40-move draw with the top seed not getting any opportunity to break through.
Even third-seeded Georgian Levan Pantsulaia suffered a serious setback after running into the in-form Rishi Sardana. Representing Australia, Sardana continued his form that saw him win the title earlier this week in Mumbai and nailed Pantsulaia in 35 moves.
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Third round: Girish Koushik drew with Farrukh Amonatov (Tjk, 2.5); Alexandr Predke (Rus, 3) bt Pravin Thipsay (2); Sammed Shete (2) lost to Ivan Rozum (Rus, 3); Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr, 3) bt K. Ratnakaran (2); Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (2.5) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (2.5); S.L. Narayanan (2.5) drew with Himal Gusain (2.5); Moheb Ameir (Egy, 3) bt Swapnil Dhopade (2); Andrei Deviatkin (Rus, 2.5) drew with Swati Ghate (2.5); Vaibhav Suri (2) drew with Bharat Kumar Reddy (2).
Second round: Saurabh Anand (1.5) drew with Vaibhav (1.5); Bharat (1.5) drew with Ivan Popov (Rus, 1.5); M. Karthikeyan (1.5) drew with Mrudul Dehankar (1.5); Tran Tuan Minh (Vie, 1.5) drew with Zia Tahsin Tajwar (Ban, 1.5); Arvinder Singh drew with P. Karthikeyan (1.5); Harshal Shahi (2) bt P. Shyaam Nikhil (1); Jay Kundaliya (2) bt S. Nitin (2).