Gibraltar Masters: Das stuns Navara

Gagare surprises Vitiugov; seven Indians among leaders.

Debashis Das defeated David Navara by 52 moves.

Grandmasters Debashis Das and Shardul Gagare benefited from the dubious knight-sacrifice from higher rated rivals and caused major upsets in the second round of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters chess tournament here on Wednesday.

Das, seeded a distant 81, upstaged fourth seed David Navara, rated 2749, in 52 moves, more less than what Gagare needed to account for seventh seed Nikita Vitiugov, rated 2732.

Seven Indians – Das, Gagare, M. R. Lalit Babu, S. P. Sethuraman, Swapnil Dhopade, S. L. Narayanan and M. R. Venkatesh – figured among 35 leaders.

However, P. Hari Krishna’s search for the first victory continued after drawing with Hungary’s Anita Gara, the lady who drew with top seed Levon Aronian in the first round.

• Debashis Das (2) bt David Navara (Cze, 1); Nikita Vitugov (Rus, 1) lost to Shardul Gagare (2); S. P. Sethuraman (2) bt Lukas Cernousek (Cze, 1); Abhijeet Gupta (1.5) drew with Lou Yiping (Chn, 1.5); Prasanna Rao (1) lost to Gabor Papp (Hun, 2); M. R. Venkatesh (2) bt Niclas Huschenbeth (Ger, 1); S. L. Narayanan (2) bt James Tarjan (USA, 1); Swayams Mihsra (1.5) drew with Sergey Grigoriants (Rus, 1.5); M. R. Lalit Babu (2) bt Tuvshintugs Batchimeg (Mgl, 1); Danyyil Dvirnyy (Ita, 1.5) drew with Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh (1.5); Irine Kharisma Sukandar (Ina, 1) lost to Swapnil Dhopade (2); Nihar Sarin (1.5) drew with Ravi Haria (Eng, 1); Gary Quillan (Eng, 1.5) drew with R. Praggnanandhaa (1.5); Levon Aronian (Arm, 1.5) bt Hemant Sharma (0.5); P. Hari Krishna (1) drew with Anita Gara (Hun, 1); Ivan Saric (Cro, 1.5) bt Raunak Sadhwani (0.5); Prithu Gupta (1) drew with Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli (Ven, 0.5); Falko Bindrich (Ger, 1.5) bt Nisha Mohota (0.5); G. N. Gopal (1.5) bt Vladislav Bliumberg (Ukr, 0.5); Stephen Mannion (Sco, 1) drew with Sandipan Chanda (1); Shalmali Gagare (0.5) lost to Ruiz Miguel Santos (Esp, 1.5); Jimenez Jose Fernando Cuenca (Esp, 1) drew with Tejaswini Sagar (1); Daniel Cawdery (RSA, 1.5) bt Dev Shah (0.5); Harshit Raja (1.5) bt Mayank Pal (0.5); Robert Bellin (Eng, 1) bt C. Sahajasri (0); Padmini Rout (1) bt Rotimi Dasaolu (Ngr, 0); Bellon Anna Cramling (Swe, 0) lost to P. V. Nandhidhaa (1).