Sudhakar Babu beats Aswin

IM Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank won his first round against S. Aswin after a long 62-move four hour battle in the Adyar Times New Millennium FIDE-rated chess tournament at the Bapalal Bhavan, Tiruvanmiyur, on Tuesday.

Top seed Himanshu Sharma of Haryana received an opening round walk-over. Second seed Praveen Kumar of ICF won in 27 moves with the black pieces while facing an English opening from Vishal Onkhar. World Under-12 champion Karthikeyan Murali registered a breezy 24-move win against Tarun Kanth.

Important results (round one): Himanshu Sharma w/o Subash Raghupathy; Vishal Onkhar lost to C. Praveen Kumar; Karthikeyan Murali bt Tarun Kanth; P. Jaikar lost to Ram S. Krishnan; P. Maheswaran bt C.S. Ashwath; S. Aswin lost to Sudhakar Babu; G.B. Prakash bt C. Lakshmi; Bathula Reddy lost to D.P. Singh; R. Ashwath bt Ramanatha Krishna; A. Harshini lost to R. Balasubramaniam. —

Arvind Aaron