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Venkatesh Das (left) and SP Sethuraman during the opening round of the National Chess Championship in Gurugram on August 17, 2024 | Photo credit: PK Ajith Kumar
The seeds were spread easily on Saturday (August 17, 2024).
All the grandmasters – 19 of them – registered victories in the opening round of the 61st National Chess Championship at RPS International School.
It included top seed and six-time champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly, second-ranked Abhijeet Gupta and third-ranked and defending champion SP Sethuraman.
Ganguly, who used the French Defence against Krishay Jain on the top board, won in 32 moves.
His task was made easier by White’s poor bishop move on the 26th move, and the result was a double-rook-and-bishop.
checkmate
On the second board, Abhijeet with white pieces checkmated Abhishek Bhatt by piece power in the 49th move.
The black king had moved far away from the safe zone, and Abhijeet had doubled his bishops in the back row.
There was a checkmate on the third board as well. Sethuraman, who played the Sicilian Defence against Venkatesh Das, cornered the white king with his queen and bishop.
In an even more interesting game, Richard Solomon defeated 13th seed Himal Gusain. There was a difference of 711 points between the young player from Tamil Nadu and his opponent. Gusain is an International Master and has a Grandmaster-like rating of 2511.
Important results (first round): Krishay Jain (Ben) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB); Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) bt Abhik Bhatt (Maharashtra); Venkatesh Das (Ben) lost to SP Sethuraman (PSPB); Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) bt Moksit Shah (Gujarat).
K. Shashank (Maharashtra) lost to Kathik Venkataraman (AP); P. Iniyan (TN) bt Divyanshu Singh (Bih); Albin Sajan (Kerala) lost to Sankalp Gupta (Maharashtra); Mitrabha Guha (Railways) v Arghya Sen (Ben).
Vyom Malhotra (Har) lost to Aronayak Ghosh (RSPB); NR Vignesh bt Krishika Garg (Del);
Amlan Mahanta (ASM) lost to NR Visakh (RSPB); Deep Sengupta (PSPB) bt Debnath Kingshuk (Tri);
Richard Solomon (TN) drew with Himal Gusain (RSPB); MR Lalith Babu (AP) beat Oishik Mondal (Belarus); Tamar Nilling (Aru) beat Sayantan Das (RSPB).
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