CHENNAI: Led by top-seed and Russian Grandmaster Pavel Ponkratov, seeded players made smooth starts in the 12th Chennai Open International chess tournament for the Sakthi Group Dr N Mahalingam Trophy on Sunday. On the top board, Ponkrantov swept part SK Kanishk in an English Opening game that lasted 29 moves.
The lower boards saw Neyveli girl KM Shrija score an upset victory over International Master Navin Kanna TU. In another notable game, national under- 11 champion G Aakash showed great promise by defeating higher-rated IM C Praveen Kumar C.
Among 284 players are 29 GMs and 23 IMs fighting for the top prize in this event offering `15 lakh in total prize money. The 10-round tournament played in the Swiss League format concludes on January 25.
Select results (Round 1): Pavel Ponkratov (Rus) bt SK Kanishk (Ind); Swayham Das lost to Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo (Per); Levan Pantsulaia (Geo) bt Sahib Singh (Ind); MS Midilesh (Ind) lost to Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr); Aleksey Goganov (Rus) bt Abhinav Chakrapani Santhalayan (Ind); Rushyendra Chowdary Kantipudi lost to Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo); Ivan Rozum (Rus) bt Vivek Tiwari (Ind); Hermon Dain Saldanha (Ind) lost to Stanislav Bogdanovich (Ukr); David Alberto (Ita) bt Rebecca Jesumarian (Ind); A Krishan (Ind) lost to Alexei Fedorov (Blr); NR Visakh bt Pathak Rudra (Ind); Vishnu Menon (Ind) lost to Yudin Sergei (Rus).
Anand held in Round 6
WIJK AAN ZEE: Viswanathan Anand was held by Dutchman Jorden Van Foreest in the sixth round of the Tata Steel Masters on Sunday. With three points from six games, Anand remains joint sixth with Magnus Carlsen. Iran’s Firouzja Alireza and Wesley So of the US are leading with four points each in one of the strongest tournaments in the world.