Sinha holds Narayanan

New Delhi (10 Jan 17) :- The 15th edition of Delhi International Open Chess Tournament got off to a surprising start as unheralded Santosh Kumar Sinha of Gujarat held sixth seed Grandmaster S L Narayanan to a creditable in draw in the opening round. Maharashtra youngster Soham Datar also started the tournament on a positive note as he held Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan. Jitendra Kumar Choudhary of Delhi also held Grandmaster Hesham Abdelrahman of Egypt as Indian proved a solid match to the foreign grandmasters.

There were numerous instances of lower rated Indian youngsters holding their higher rated counterparts as Priyanka Nutakki held Women Grandmaster Toma Katarzyna of Poland while Rakshita Ravi and Sambit Panda held seasoned International Masters Atanu Lahiri and Anup Deshmukh respectively.

A total number of 258 players from 23 countries, which include 24 Grandmasters, 22 International Masters are taking part in the premier section while in the Category ‘B’ for the players below 1999 international rating which is underway simultaneously with the premier section attracted a total number of 638 players. The third category for the players below 1599 elo rating will start on Friday and this section already crossed the barrier 800 and entries are pouring day by day.

Earlier, in the opening ceremony, Shri. Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi formally inaugurated the tournament by making the customary first move in presence of Shri. Madhup Tiwari IPS, Group Captain J Rajendra VSM and Shri. Bharat Singh, CEO All India Chess Federation.

In the opening ceremony, Shri. Bharat Singh made a surprise move by announcing the next edition of this event with a record prize fund of Rs. 77,77,777 in the year 2018.

Important Results Round-1 (Indians otherwise stated) :- Aditya Mittal (0) lost to GM Farrukh Amonatov of Tajikstan (1); GM Lalith Babu M R (1) beat Bhupendra Niraula of Nepal (0); Indranil Das (0) lost to GM Diptayan Ghosh (1); GM Alberto David of Italy (1) beat WFM Saina Salonika (0); Vantika Agrawal (0) lost to GM Karthikeyan Murali (1); GM S L Narayanan (.5) drew with Santosh Kumar Sinha (.5); WFM Arpita Mukherjee (0) lost to GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy of Ukraine (1); GM Vitaly Sivuk of Ukraine (1) beat Santanu Borpatra Gohain (0); Mallick Masudur Rahman of Bangladesh (0) lost to GM Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine (1); GM Vadim Malakhatko of Belgium (1) beat Ankan Roy (0); Chakravarthy YVK (0) lost to GM Karen Movsziszian of Armenia (1); GM Andrei Deviatkin of Russia (1) beat Shakti Vishal (0); Vinay Raj Bhatt (0) lost to GM Adam Horvath of Hungary (1); GM Attila Czebe of Hungary (1) beat Jay Kundaliya (0); Bharath Subramaniyam (0) lost to IM Swayams Mishra (1); GM Jacek Stopa of Poland (1) beat Niladri Shekhar Bhattacharya (0); WIM Ivana Maria Furtado (0) lost to GM Valeriy Neverov of Ukraine (1); GM Sahaj Grover (1) beat Badrinath S (0); WFM Rutumbara Bidhar lost to GM Neelotpal Das (1); GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan (.5) drew with Soham Datar (.).