Tough Day for seeded players

By Gopakumar

Ahmedabad (14 Aug 17) :- Top players of the National Challengers Championship are feeling the heat in the Ahmedabad’s overcast conditions early to the tournament as three out of four top seeded players were forced to split the points with their lower rated rivals in the second round here at the Karnavati Club.

Odisha’s Baivab Mishra held top seed Aravaindh Chithamabaram while third seed Lalith Babu M R of PSPB and fourth seed Air India’s N Srinath are forced to sign the peace treaty with Neelash Saha and Manush Shah, respectively.
Baivab was a class act on Monday morning with his black pieces against Aravindh in Sicilian defence game. He didn’t given any chance to Aravindh to maneuver his pieces and with accurate counter-play made a creditable draw.

On the third board, playing from the white side of English Opening Lalith Babu had to be satisfied with half a point after 73 moves against his West Bengal rival while Srinath settled for draw against local hope Shah in just 28 moves arrived out of the Classical variation of Queen’s Indian defence.

The woes of former champion Sriram Jha continued in the second round also as he split the point with Andhra Pradesh youngster Chaitanya Sairam Mogili. It’s a memorable event so far for Chaitanya as he held International Master Satyapragyan in the opening round.

In other important encounters, second seed Grandmaster SL Narayanan posted a convincing victory over host’s Jalpan Bhatt while Grandmasters Swapnil Dhopade, Himanshu Sharma and Abhijit Kunte scored contrasting wins to stay among the leaders.

Important Results Round -2 :- GM Aravindh Chithamabaram of TN (1.5) drew with Baivab Mishra of ODI (1.5); Jalpan Bhatt of GUJ (1) lost to GM SL Narayanan of KER (2); GM Lalith Babu M R of PSPB (1.5) drew with Neelash Saha of WB (1.5); Manush Shah of GUJ (1.5) drew with GM N Srinath of AI (1.5); GM Swapnil Dhopade of RLYS (2) beat Shantanu Bhambure of MAH (1); Deepthamesh Reddy of TEL (1) lost to GM Himanshu Sharma of RLYS (2); GM Abhijit Kunte of PSPB (2) beat Tarini Goyal of CHAN (1); Santosh Kumar Sinha of GUJ (1) lost to Debashis Das of ODI (2); IM Thejkumar M S of RLYS (2) beat Tarun V Kanth of TN (1); Samnat Aditya of MAH (0) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy of RLYS (2).