Thursday Nov 14, 2024
Thursday Nov 14, 2024
Friday, 25 March 2022 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
 |
| Ranindu Liyanage |
NEW DELHI (Reuters): India's youngest ever grandmaster D Gukesh suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of unheralded Ranindu Liyanage of Sri Lanka in the second round of the 19th Delhi International Open Chess tournament here on Wednesday.
On a day when second seed Pavel Ponkratov of Russia, third seed local star and defending champion Abhijeet Gupta and fourth seed Neuris Delgado Ramirez of Paraguay were held to draws by lesser rated opponents, top seed Arjun Erigaisi cruised for his second straight win at the expense of seasoned Grandmaster P Karthikeyan.
For Gukesh, it was simply a bad day in the office when nothing worked right. Playing the black side of a French defence, the Indian held a comfortable position, but it was not easy to convert into a full point. As the pieces changed hands at regular intervals, Gukesh found the going tough as he kept looking for an elusive victory.
Liyanage kept himself in the game by keeping the position quiet for a long time and later launched an offensive through a rook invasion on the seventh rank in the rook and minor piece endgame. The Sri Lankan got a dangerous passed pawn on the queenside that netted him a full piece and it was all over soon.
The Delhi open is being played under FIDE's Swiss rules and there are eight rounds remaining in the Rs. 25 Lakh prize money tournament.
Important results Round Two: (Indians otherwise stated):- GM Arjun Erigaisi (2) beat GM Karthikeyan P (1), IM Sidhant Mohapatra (1.5) drew with GM Pavel Ponkratov of Russia (1.5), GM Abhijeet Gupta (1.5) drew with IM Padmini Rout (1.5), IM Anuj Shrivatri (1.5) drew with GM Neuris Delgado Ramirez of Paraguay (1.5), GM Sethuraman S P (2) beat Utasab Chatterjee (1), FM Liyanage Ranindu Dilshan of Sri Lanka (2) beat GM Gukesh D (1), GM Lalith Babu M R (2) beat IM Sai Agni Jeevitesh J (1), IM Ratnakaran K (1) lost to GM Visakh N R (2), GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (1.5) drew with FM Rohith Krishna S (1.5), Dhanjay S (1) lost to GM Iniyan P (1.5), GM Masoud Modadeghpour of Iran (2) beat IM Somak Palit (1), WGM Divya Deshmukh (1) lost to GM Mitrabha Guha (1), GM Arjun Kalyan (1.5) drew with IM Dinesh Sharma (1.5), FM Aaryan Varshney(1.5) drew with GM Harsha Bharathakoti (1.5), GM Adham Fawzy of Egypt (2) beat Rohit S (1), Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri (1) lost to GM Karthik Venkataraman (2), IM Raahul V S (1) lost to FM Seyed Kian Poormosavi of Iran (2), WIM Arpita Mukherjee (1) lost to GM Azer Mirzoev of Azerbaijan (2), IM Arash Tahbaz of Iran (2) beat FM LMST De Silva of Sri Lanka (1), WGM Srija Seshadri (2) beat IM CRG Krishna (1).
