CHENNAI: Chennai lad Thrish Karthik posted an upset win over Grandmaster Suat Atalik of Turkey to steal the spotlight in the first round of the 10th Chennai Open International Grandmaster Chess tournament 2018 here today.
Top seed GM Timur Gareyev of USA scored a comfortable victory over S Kumar on the top board, while the second board saw Russian Grand Master Ivan Rozum settle for a draw against lower-rated Harshal Patil.
In a Kings Indian Defence game that lasted 75 moves, Karthik got the better of Atalik. An end game lapse in the fourth hour saw the Turkish GM go an exchange down, which the local lad converted precisely in his favour.
Important results (Round 1) (Indians unless otherwise specified): Gareyev Timur (USA) bt S Kumar; Rozum Ivan (Rus) drew with Patil Harshal; Sergei Tiviakov (Ned) bt Lakshmi C; Yuri Soloedovnichenko (Ukr) bt Kumthekar Shubham; Tukhaev Adam (Ukr) bt Ghelani Dhairya; Vitaly Sivuk (Ukr) bt Godson Merlin E; Thrish Karthik bt Atalik Suat (Tur); Pruijssers Roeland (Ned) bt Kanishk S K; P Karthikeyan bt S Rohit; Deepan Chakkravarthy bt Samdani Sahil Sagar.