ROUND 2 Report on Asian Individual Chess Championships, Al Ain, U.A.E 7th to 15th May, 2025.                 

   The round two of the Asian Individual Chess Championships saw a brilliant display by most of the Indian participants.

  On the top board, International Master A. R Ilamparthi of Tamil Nadu scored a  crushing victory over highly rated Grandmaster Tabatabaei of Iran. On the second board former National Champion Murali Karthikeyan scored easily over Lou Yiping of China.

Grandmasters P Iniyan, M Pranesh & Prraneeth Vuppala defeated Wang Shixu (China), Kong Ziangrui (China) & Grigory Fedorov ( Russia) respectively. All the above Indians are in joint lead with 2 points each.

The National Champion Karthik Venkataraman, however, suffered a setback at hands of IM Mahdavi Reza of Iran.   

The Round 2 was inaugurated by Arjuna Awardee Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay.

In the women’s section, Vantika Agrawal, Priyanka Nutakki, Srija Sheshadri &  Rakshita Ravi are leading the field with two points, jointly with the top seed Valentina Gunina of Russia. National Champion P V Nandhidhaa, Nisha Mohota and Mary Ann Gomes are on 1.5 points each.