Seeds sail smoothly on day 1 of All India chess

NAGPUR: Seeded masters were off to an easy start in the 4th GH Raisoni Memorial and LIC All India Open Fide rating chess tournament which got underway at the newly constructed hall of Dr Ambedkar Management Institute & Research in Deekshbhoomi on Tuesday.
The All India tournament is being organized by the Parents Chess Association (PCA) and is being played under the aegis of Nagpur District Chess Association (NDCA) and Maharashtra Chess Association (MCA). Over 300 participants have taken part in the six-day meet being played in the Swiss League format.
On the top table of the opening round, top seed Grand Master Sriram Jha made light work of Sanskruti Wankhade for full points.Representing LIC, Jha utilized his opening advantage with the white pieces and took mere 29 moves for a winning start.
On the following board, second seed VAV Rajesh, an International Master with Elo rating of 2354, outclassed Pramod J Ramteke. Third seed and Fide Master Akash Thakur got the better of SK Laha while Al Muthaiah — despite playing with the black bits — defeated Mohal Kale on the 4th table. In the same way, fifth seed Akash Iyer made most of his opening advantage with the whites to take Tekam Krunal in his stride.
Earlier, the tournament was inaugurated by the hands of Mrunal Naik from the Raisoni Group. Senior divisional manager of LIC Ashwin Kumar Jha shared the dais. Ambedkar College vice-principal Arvind Joshi presided over the opening ceremony. On the occasion all the members of Parents Chess Association were present.
RESULTS (Round 1)
Sriram Jha (1) bt Sanskruti Wankhade (0), Pramod J Ramteke (0) lost to VAV Rajesh (1), Akash Thakur (1) bt SK Laha (0), Mohan Kale (0) lost to Al Muthaiah (1), Akash Pc Iyer (1) bt Tekam Krunal (0), CD Gajbhiye (0) lost to Sammed Jaykumar Shete (1), Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad (1) bt Dodeja Mann (0), Raunak Godbole (0) lost to Chakravarthi Reddy M (1), SV Srinath Rao (1) bt Awghad Shyam (0), Rujul Shinde (0) lost to Dhananjay (1), Sauravh Khherdekar (1) bt Ishan M Deshpande (0), Aditi Deshmukh (0) lost to J Ramakrishna (1), Shailesh Dravid (1) bt Muktanand Pendsey (0), Dnynadha N Vitalkar (0) lost to Pawan Dodeja (1), Shamkumar Malayil (0) lost to Bavankumar (1), Yash Firke (0) lost to Bharambe Bhavik C (1), Sankalp Gupta (1) bt Khush Wairagade (0), Gaitonde Shubham (0) lost to J Saranya (1)