Chess National Championship: Santanu holds Vignesh; easy for leading seeds

Much more even contests are expected when those victorious today face-off in the second round. The premier event has all single-round days and the competition gets increasingly fierce with every passing round.

Barring a few draws, results followed expected lines in the opening round of the National chess championship here on Thursday.  | Photo Credit: Peter Kovalev/TASS

Barring a few draws, results followed expected lines in the opening round of the National chess championship here on Thursday.

Top seed S. P. Sethuraman led the anticipated charge of those from the top-half of the starting list against the weaker opposition from the lower-half. Second seed Abhijeet Gupta, Leon Mendonca, Shyam Sundar, Aronyak Ghosh, Koustav Chatterjee, last edition’s third-ranked player P. Iniyan, Karthik Venkatraman and Swapnil Dhopade won as expected. Santanu Borpatra swam against the current and held N. R. Vignesh in 44 moves to cause a mild surprise.

Similarly, Sparsh Khandelwal played way over his rating of 1858 to hold Sayantan Das, rated 2475 in 47 moves.

The experience of Deepan Chakkravarthy (2457) could not help him get more than a draw against Aarav Sinha (1854) in 54 moves.

Upcoming talent Neelash Saha (2429) faced a similar predicament against Rupam Mukherjee (1838).

Other names who got off to winning starts were, P. Shyaamnikhil, Mitrabha Guha, Deep Sengupta, C. R. G. Krishna, Sandipan Chanda and M. R. Venkatesh.

Much more even contests are expected when those victorious today face-off in the second round. The premier event has all single-round days and the competition gets increasingly fierce with every passing round.

With inputs from Rakesh Rao.