Venkatesh Das (left) and S.P. Sethuraman in the opening round of the National chess championship at Gurugram on August 17, 2024
| Photo Credit: P.K. AJITH KUMAR
The seeds sailed smoothly on Saturday (August 17, 2024).
The opening round of the 61st National chess championship saw all the Grandmasters — 19 of them — post wins at the RPS International School.
That included top seed and six-time champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly, second-ranked Abhijeet Gupta and third seed and defending champion S.P. Sethuraman.
Ganguly, who employed the French Defence against Krishay Jain on the top board, romped home in 32 moves.
His job was made easier by a poor bishop manoeuvre by white on the 26th move, in a double-rook-and-bishop ending.
Checkmate
On the second board, Abhijeet, with white pieces, checkmated Abheek Bhatt on the 49th move with a pawn push.
The black king had been driven far away from the safety zone, with Abhijeet doubling up his rooks on the back rank.
The third board too saw a checkmate. Sethuraman, who played Sicilian Defence against Venkatesh Das, cornered the white king with the queen and bishop.
In a much more interesting game, Richard Solomon held 13th seed Himal Gusain. As many as 711 points separated the young Tamil Nadu lad from his rival, who is an International Master with a Grandmaster like rating of 2511.
Important results (first round): Krishay Jain (Ben) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB); Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) bt Abheek Bhatt (Mah); Venkatesh Das (Ben) lost to S.P. Sethuraman (PSPB); Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) bt Moxit Shah (Guj.
K. Shashank (Mah) lost to Kathik Venkataraman (AP); P. Iniyan (TN) bt Divyanshu Singh (Bih); Albin Sajan (Ker) lost to Sankalp Gupta (Mah); Mitrabha Guha (Rly) bt Arghya Sen (Ben).
Vyom Malhotra (Har) lost to Aronyak Ghosh (RSPB); N.R. Vignesh bt Krishika Garg (Del);
Amlan Mahanta (Asm) lost to N.R. Visakh (RSPB); Deep Sengupta (PSPB) bt Debnath Kingshuk (Tri);
Richard Solomon (TN) drew with Himal Gusain (RSPB); M.R. Lalith Babu (AP) bt Oishik Mondal (Ben); Tamar Nilling (Aru) lost to Sayantan Das (RSPB).
