The lesser-ranked Indians continued to rattle the hierarchy as the second day of the LIC international Grandmasters chess tournament here on Tuesday witnessed some more upsets.
Abhishek Kelkar downed GM Abdulla Al-Rakib of Bangladesh to spring the first surprise. Kelkar broke through the kingside defences of Al-Rakib with a decisive piece sacrifice and won the game in a mere 25 moves.
In another upset, Indian GM Tejas Bakre went down to compatriot IM M. Chakravarthi Reddy in 46 moves in a Slav defence.
Veteran Indian IM P. Konguvel outwitted GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan in a King’s Indian defence while former National women’s champion IM S. Vijayalakshmi got the better of GM Ankit Rajpara.
Bucking the trend was top seeded Nigel Short, who got the better of IM K. Ratnakaran of India in 61 moves. Fifth-seeded Surya Sekhar Ganguly continued his winning run outclassing IM S. Satyapragyan in 41 moves in Sicilian defence.
Important results (second round; all Indians unless specified): Nigel Short (Eng) 2 bt K. Ratnakaran 1, Dimitry Kokarev (Rus) 1.5 drew with Sriram Jha 1.5, S. Satyapragyan 1 lost to Surya Sekhar Ganguly 2.
G.N. Gopal 1.5 drew with G.A. Stany 1.5, R.R. Laxman 1.5 drew with Lu Shanglei (Chn) 1.5, Pavel Kotsur (Kaz) 1 lost to P. Konguvel 2, Akash Thakur 1.5 drew with Deep Sengupta 1.5, Vladisav Kovalev (Blr) 1.5 drew with Himal Gusain 1.5, Abhishek Kelkar 2 bt Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban) 1, M. Kunal 1.5 drew with Wang Chen (Chn) 1.5; Sameer Kathmale 1 lost to M. Shyam Sundar 2, Abhijit Kunte 2 bt B.S. Shivananda 1, S. Vijayalakshmi 2 bt Ankit R. Rajpara 1.
