Twelve players with two points apiece shared the lead that included four Indians in SREI International GM Chess Tournament.
Chess
Kolkata: Nineteen-year-old IM Prasanna Rao held Russian GM Ivan Popov in a top board upset of round two as Indian youngsters continued to their impressive show in the SREI International GM Chess Tournament here today.
Twelve players with two points apiece shared the lead that included four Indians. Rao held the second seed Russian GM in a semi-Slav defence as a truce was reached in 24 moves. Fifteen-year-old N R Vignesh, who had upset third seed GM Levan Pantsulaia yesterday, put up another sterling performance to hold Indian GM R R Laxman and take his tally to 1.5 points.
Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan stunned Rishi Sardana of Australia by a brilliant queen sacrifice on the 26th move for two minor pieces. Despite all his attempts to stem the attack Sardana could not prevent Marat from trapping his king in a mating net with rook and a bishop.
IM Jacek Stopa of Poland, with an Elo rating of 2488, made short work of American GM Raset Ziatdinov after he won the exchange of rook for bishop on the 20th move. Ziatdinov's position deteriorated thereafter and he resigned on the 34th move.
National Women's champion Mary Ann Gomes had a poor start to her campaign as she drew both her games against low rated players. In the second round, she was held to a draw by Vinay kumar Matta who has a rating of 2199.
Former Bengal champion, veteran Kunal Kumar Chatterjee after drawing with GM Azer Mirzoev in the first round beat IM Bahruz Rzayev of Azerbaijan in the 2nd round. GM Praveen Thipsay recovered from his shock defeat in the first round to win comfortably against S Harini in another battle.
( Source : PTI )
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