Grandmaster Debashis Das came up with his best performance ever to hold former world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria to a creditable draw in the second round of the Masters’ section of Tradewise Gibraltar Chess festival, here on Thursday.
On a day of upsets, Indian Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna defeated Grandmaster Emil Sutovsky of Israel while former world junior girls’ champion Soumya Swaminathan beat American Kayden Troff to maintain a clean slate after two games. Also ending on a high was Indian GM M.R. Venkatesh who scored a fine victory over Simen Agdestein of Norway.
With eight rounds still to come, it was business as usual for some of the higher-ranked players.
But highest rated Indian P. Harikrishna had to show his endgame-magic before he could secure his second victory in the tournament.
The results:
Round two: Debashis Das 1.5 drew with Veselin Topalov (Bul) 1.5; Hikaru Nakamura (Usa) 2 bt D. Harika 1; Yangyi Yu (Chn) 2 bt M. Shyam Sundar 1; Quinten Ducarmon (Ned) 1 lost to P. Harikrishna 2; Wei Yi (Chn) 2 bt Alan Pichot 1; Arghyadip Das 1 lost to Yifan Hou (Chn) 2; V. Vishnu Prasanna 2 bt Emil Sutovsky (Isr) 1; Stefan Docx (Bel) 1 lost to B. Adhiban 2; Simen Agdestein (Nor) 1 lost to M.R. Venkatesh 2; Ismael Teran Alvarez (Esp) 1.5 drew with S.P. Sethuraman 1.5; Aleksandr Lenderman (USA) 1.5 drew with Neelotpal Das 1.5.
Eesha Karavade 1 lost to Nils Grandelius (Swe) 2; Surya Shekhar Ganguly 2 bt David Martinez Martin (Esp) 1; Padmini Rout 1.5 drew with Sandro Mareco (Arg) 1.5; Manuel Juan Bellon Lopez (Esp) 2 bt Sandipan Chanda 1; Thomas Paehtz (Ger) 1.5 drew with Deep Sengupta 1.5; Soumya Swaminathan 2 bt Kayden Troff (USA) 1; M.R. Lalith Babu bt Marta Bartel (Pol) 1.
