Favourites R. Praggnanandhaa and Tania Sachdev started their campaigns with draws but ninth seed Abhijeet Gupta and women’s second seed Nomin-Erdene Davaademberel proved the biggest casualties in the opening round of the Asian chess championship here on Wednesday.
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Turkmenistan’s Saparmyrat Atabayev, rated over 250 points below Praggnanandhaa, gave nothing away during their 57-move deadlock. Abhijeet, rated 2607, became the biggest casualty after running into Mongolia’s Ganzorig Amartuvshin (2406).
Tania and Sakshi Chitlange were engaged in a 26-move battle that ended with three-fold repetition of moves. A little later, Davaademberel found herself outplayed. Kazakhstan’s Liya Kurmangaliyeva seized her chance with a kingside offensive and won in 40 moves.
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After a series of fiercely-fought games, there were 32 leaders in the Open section and 15 among the women.
Leading first-round results (Indians unless stated): Open: Saparmyrat Atabayev (Tkm) drew with R. Praggnanandhaa; S.L. Narayanan bt G. B. Harsharavdhan; Ortik Nigmatov (Uzb) drew with Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb); S. P. Sethuraman bt Bbobir Sattarov (Uzb); Moksh Doshi drew with Aryan Chopra; Aravindh Chithambaram bt Sammed Shete; Anuj Shrivatri lost to M. Karthikeyan; Rinat Jumabayev (Kaz) drew with S. Nitin; Ganzorig Amartuvshin (Mgl) bt Abhijeet Gupta; B. Adhiban bt Neelotpal Das.
Women: Sakshi Chitlange drew with Tania Sachdev; Nomin-Erdene Davaademberel (Mgl) lost to Liya Kurmangaliyeva (Kaz); Srija Seshadri drew with Padmini Rout; Bhakti Kulkarni bt Nisha Mohota; Mrudul Dehankar drew with Vantika Agrawal; Nilufar Yakubbaeva (Uzb) drew with Aakanksha Hagawane; B. Mounika Akshaya lost to Divya Deshmukh; Eesha Karavade drew with A. Harshini; V. Varshini drew with Vo Thi Kim Phung (Vie); Soumya Swaminathan bt Parnali Dharia; Tejaswini Sagar lost to N. Priyanka; Mary Ann Gomes bt K. Priyanka.