National Chess Championship 2024: Abhijeet Gupta loses to Vignesh Advaith Vemula; Surya Shekhar notches up fourth win

The No. 3 seed 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

M.R. Venkatesh (right) surprised sixth seed P. Iniyan in the fourth round of the National chess championship. | Photo Credit: P.K. Ajith Kumar

After the quiet of the past three days, Tuesday 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.