Thaindian News

Gurgaon, Jan 22 (IANS) Grandmasters Evgeny Gleizerov of Russia and Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan suffered shock defeats at the hands of unheralded P. Saravanakrishanan and Laltu Chatterjee of India, respectively, in the second round of the Gurgaon International Open Grand Master Chess tournament at Suncity World School here Thursday.Playing white side of French Defence Tarrasch variation, Saravanakrishanan overcame his fancied rival Gleizerov in 46 moves while Laltu got better of Kostenko in 44 moves with black pieces in Spanish game.

If these two upset results were not enough for the seeded players, highly rated Uzbek Grandmaster Safin Shukhrat settled for a draw against talented youngster Sayantan Das. American International Master Justin Sarkar also remained satisfied with half point against India’s Shailendra Bajpai. Local hopeful International Master Himanshu Sharma got a set back to his title contention from the hands of young Shardul Gagare.

At the top of the tables it was a different story as top seeded GM Alexander Areshchenko of Ukraine had it easy against Matta Vinay Kumar while Mehar Chinna Reddy proved no match for second seed GM Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine.

The third round of this tournament in which 298 players of 12 different countries are participating was still in progress at the time of latest report.

Important Results of Round 2 (Indians otherwise stated): GM Alexander Areshchenko of Ukraine (2) beat Matta Vinay Kumar (1); Mehar Chinna Reddy (1) lost to GM Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine (2) ; GM Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine (2) beat Saurabh Kherdekar (1) ; P Saravana Krishanan (2) beat GM Evgeny Gleizerov of Russia (1) ; GM Abhijit Kunte (2) beat Mohammad Ali of Bangladesh (1) ; Puneet Jaiswal (1) lost to GM Anua Ismagambetov of Kazakhstan (2) ; GM Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan (2) beat Pritam Singh (1) ; FM Sayantan Das (1.5) drew with GM Safin Shukhrat of Uzbekistan (1.5) ; GM Mikhail Ulibin of Russia (2) beat Debaraj Chatterjee of Bangladesh (1) ; Muminova Nafisa of Uzbekistan (1) lost to IM B Adhiban (2) ; GM Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan (1) lost to Laltu Chattarjee (2) ; IM Hegde Ravi Gopal (1) lost to GM Neelotpal Das (2) ; GM Magesh Chandran (2) beat Pradip Ghosh (1) ; Yusup Atabayev (1) lost to IM RR Laxamn (2) ; M R Lalith Babu (2) beat O T Anilkumar (1).