Mounika holds Jha

By M.S.Gopakumar, I.A

Ahmedabad (13 Aug 17) :- Guntur based fourteen year old Bommini Mounika Akshya held former champion and Grandmaster Sriram Jha of LIC in the opening round of the National Challengers Chess Championship which got off to a rousing start at Karnavati Club, Ahmedabad on Sunday.

Playing white side of Slav defence game, Jha tried hard to take full point from the first round outing, but found Mounika’s defence as a tough nut to crack and forced to split the point after a marathon match that lasted more than five hours and 100 moves.

In other surprising results of the day, Kartavya Anadkat brought cheers to the local crowd on Sunday afternoon as he beat seasoned International Master Dinesh Kumar Sharma in 37 moves. Air India’s Satyapragyan and Tamilnadu’s Niranjan Navalgund forced to split the points against lower rated Chaitanya Sairam Mogili of Telangana and Khalid Amin of Jammu&Kashmir respectively.

Apart from these surprising results, all seeded players started their tournament campaign with expected victories in the opening round.

Important Results Round-1

Mohith R of TN (0) lost to GM Aravindh Chithamabaram of TN (1); GM SL Narayanan of KER (1) beat Neelabh Jyoti Borthakur of ASM (0): Karan Trivedi of GUJ (0) lost to GM Lalith Babu MR of PSPB (1); GM N Srinath of AI (1) beat Sambit Panda of ODI (0); Sneh Dave of GUJ (0) lost to GM Swapnil Dhoapde of RLYS (1); GM Himanshu Sharma of RLYS (1) beat Rahul Kumar of BIH (0): Aryan of DEL (0) lost to Abhijit Kunte of PSPB (1); GM Debashis Das of ODI (1) beat Himanshu Harsh of BIH (0); Vikee Vishal of BIH (0) lost to IM Thejkumar MS of RLYS (1); GM Deepan Chakkravarthy of RLYS (1) beat Lalzawmliana of MIZ (0); Ashutosh Banerjee of CHAT (0) lost to GM Tejas Bakre of AI (1); IM Swayams Mishra of AI (1) beat Rijied Katrai of MEG (0); Chandrajeet Singh Rajawat of RAJ (0) lost to IM Shyaamnikhil P of RLYS (1); IM Nitin S of RLYS (1) beat Sahil Dhawan of HAR (0); Mukesh Mandloi fo RAJ (0) lost to Arghyadip Das of RLYS (1); IM S Satyapragyan of AI (.5) drew with Chaitanya Sairam Mogili of AP (.5); Rajesh Diwan of OFSPB (0) lost to GM Laxman RR of RLYS (1); IM Krishna CRG of RLYS (1) beat Raahil Mullick of MAH (0); Sudhakar Prem Dutt of BSNL (0) lost to IM Ravi Teja S of RLYS (1); GM Sriram Jha of LIC (.5) drew with Bommini Mounika Akshaya of AP (.5).