Al Muthaiah tames Pantsulaia

5 years ago

New Delhi (10 Jan 2020) :- International Master Al Muthaiah caused a major flutter crashing through the defenses of defending champion Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia in second round of the Delhi International Grandmasters Chess tournament now underway here at Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium.

It turned out to be a massive success for Muthaiah with white pieces as Pantsulaia struggled in the middle game and could never really recovered. Winning a rook for a knight Muthaiah ensured he made no further errors and won the game in style.

Utkal Ranjan Sahoo also came up with a good effort to hold Alexey Goganov of Russia on a day when top seed Farrukh Amonatov of Tajikistan was also forced to split the point with Abdialik Abdisalimov of Uzbekistan.

Top-seeded Indian Grandmaster Karthikeyan Murali was also held to a draw by Denis Eraschenko of Russia in another upset result of the day. The second highest-rated Indian Abhijeet Gupta, however, played a fine game to beat Neelash Saha.

Local boy Aaryan Varshney also impressed as he played out a draw with black pieces against Grandmaster Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine. Varshney, who is looking for his third and final International Master norm from the event, was in control for the major part of this hard-fought game.

Ranveer Mohite was the other Indian to impress as he drew with Grandmaster Sahaj Grover who is back in India after a two year gap. Mohite played well under pressure to hold the forte.

With eight rounds still to come in the 10-rounds event, the next round will already see many Grandmasters competing against each other. The total prize pool for the GM event is 3900000 while the Delhi festival has a total prize pool of Rs. 1.11 Crores.

Important Results

Round 2

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2631	1	½ – ½	1	IM	Abdisalimov Abdimalik	2381	48
2	47	GM	Czebe Attila	2392	1	0 – 1	1	GM	Ponkratov Pavel	2622	2
3	3	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2606	1	½ – ½	1	IM	Eraschenkov Denis	2370	50
4	49	GM	Manik Mikulas	2378	1	0 – 1	1	GM	Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo	2606	4
5	5	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2603	1	1 – 0	1	IM	Neelash Saha	2356	54
6	51	IM	Muthaiah Al	2367	1	1 – 0	1	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	2598	6
7	53	FM	Audi Ameya	2359	1	0 – 1	1	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	2592	8
8	9	GM	Goganov Aleksey	2583	1	½ – ½	1		Sahoo Utkal Ranjan	2348	56
9	55		Kaustuv Kundu	2349	1	0 – 1	1	GM	Mchedlishvili Mikheil	2578	10
10	11	GM	Rozum Ivan	2573	1	1 – 0	1		Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri	2306	60