GURUGRAM
After the quiet of the past three days, Tuesday (August 21, 2024).proved quite stormy at the National chess championship.
Some top Grandmasters lost, a few others were held. The No. 1 seed Surya Shekhar Ganguly, however, notched up his fourth win in a row at the RPS International School. He is among the nine leaders, on four points, with seven rounds remaining.
Seeds two to four are not in that list: the No. 2, Abhijeet Gupta, after a disappointing draw in the previous round, was beaten by Vignesh Advaith Vemula who is rated 394 Elo points below; the No. 3 and defending champion S.P. Sethuraman was forced to split the point with P. Shyaam Nikhil in the day’s longest game, lasting 111 moves; fourth seed Diptayan Ghosh drew with Swapnil Dhopade in just 18 moves.
There were more surprises: M.R. Venkatesh turned the table on the sixth seed and fellow Tamil Nadu player P. Iniyan, avenging his defeat at the last Nationals.
“This is the third time in a row we are meeting in this tournament, and now the scores are equal,” Venkatesh said after winning in 32 moves from the white side of a Sicilian Alapin.
The day also saw former champion and 14th seed M.R. Lalith Babu going down to Raihaan Zahid.
The results (fourth round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB) 4 bt C.R.G. Krishna (RSPB) 3; S.P. Sethuraman (PSPB) 3.5 drew with P. Shyaam Nikhil (RSPB) 3.5; Swapnil Dhopade 3.5 drew with Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) 3.5; Karthik Venkataraman (AP) 4 bt Utkal Sahoo (Odi) 2; M.R. Venkatesh (PSPB) 4 bt P. Iniyan (TN) 3; Sankalp Gupta (Mah) 4 bt Dinesh K. Sharma (LIC) 2; Antonio Viani (Kar) 3.5 drew with Mitrabha Guha (RSPB) 3.5; Aronyak Ghosh (RSPB) 4 bt Mukund Agarwal (Guj) 3; Sai Karthik (Tel) 3 lost to Deep Sengupta (PSPB) 4; Zahid Raihaan (Tel) 4 bt M.R. Lalith Babu (AP) 3; Sayantan Das (RSPB) 4 bt A. Balkishan (Kar) 3; Shrayan Majumder (Mah) 3 lost to Neelash Saha (RSPB) 4; Vignesh Adwaitth Vemula (Tel) 3.5 bt Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) 2.5.
