Bala Chandra shocks Vladimir Belous

Bala Chandra shocks Vladimir Belous

New Delhi (10 Jan 16) :- Young Indian talent Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad caused a major upset defeating eighth seed Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Belous in the second round of the premier section of 14th Delhi International Chess tournament now underway here.

On what turned out to be another tough day for the higher ranked players, highest ranked Indian Grandmaster M R Lalith Babu was also held to a draw by N Krishna Teja while Delhi’s Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri also had to split the point with K Vijay Keerthi.

As many as 30 players including top seed Boris Grachev of Russia emerged with a perfect score after the end of the second round in this Rs. 35 Lakh prize money chess festival that is being held in three different categories.

The category ‘B’ that has a record participation of over 600 participants fighting it out for Rs. 11.5 Lakh saw most of the action on the top boards and after the end of the fifth round there, as many as eight players share the lead. This section has four more rounds to go and Amimi Habibulah of Afghanistan has emerged as one of the front runner for the title here.

Meanwhile in the premier group, the day belonged to Bala Chandra who cruised at the expense of seasoned Grandmaster Belous. It was an innocuous queen pawn opening by Bala Chandra that got the Indian a balanced yet dynamic middle game and set the pace for an exciting finish.

Belous, at one point in the middle game, could have drawn the game vide repetition of moves but the Russian decided to continue and that proved a decisive mistake. Bala Chandra got his pawn rolling in the center after some wild complexities and reached a winning endgame with an extra piece to ensure his second win on the trot.

Important Results Round-2 (Indians otherwise stated) :- GM Boris Grachev of Russia (2) beat Iniyan P (1); Pratik Patil (1) lost to GM Ivan Popov of Russia (2); Rajdeep Sarkar (1) lost to GM Anton Demchenko of Russia (2); GM Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine (2) beat IM Murali Krishnan B T (1); Lokesh N (1) lost to GM Sivuk Vitaly of Ukraine (2); GM Mikhail Mozharov of Russia (2) beat Aniruddha Deshpande (1); Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad (2) beat GM Vladimir Belous of Russia (1); GM Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine (2) beat Raghunandan K S (1); IM Krishna Teja N (1.5) drew with GM Lalith Babu M R (1.5); GM Vaibhav Suri (1.5) drew with Vijay Keerthi K (1.5); Hemant Sharma (1) lost to GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy (2); Shailesh Dravid (1) lost to GM Ernst Sipke of Netherlands (2); GM Esen Baris of Turkey (1.5) drew with Debarshi Mukherjee (1.5).