Favourites R. Praggnanandhaa and Tania Sachdev started their campaigns with draws but ninth seed Abhijeet Gupta and women’s second seed Nomin-Erdene Davaademberel proved the biggest casualties in the opening round of the Asian chess championship here on Wednesday.
Turkmenistan’s Saparmyrat Atabayev, rated over 250 points below Praggnanandhaa, gave nothing away during their 57-move deadlock. Abhijeet, rated 2607, became the biggest casualty after running into Mongolia’s Ganzorig Amartuvshin (2406).
Tania and Sakshi Chitlange were engaged in a 26-move battle that ended with three-fold repetition of moves. A little later, Davaademberel found herself outplayed. Kazakhstan’s Liya Kurmangaliyeva seized her chance with a kingside offensive and won in 40 moves.
After a series of fiercely-fought games, there were 32 leaders in the Open section and 15 among the women.
Leading first-round results (Indians unless stated): Open: Saparmyrat Atabayev (Tkm) drew with R. Praggnanandhaa; S.L. Narayanan bt G. B. Harsharavdhan; Ortik Nigmatov (Uzb) drew with Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb); S. P. Sethuraman bt Bbobir Sattarov (Uzb); Moksh Doshi drew with Aryan Chopra; Aravindh Chithambaram bt Sammed Shete; Anuj Shrivatri lost to M. Karthikeyan; Rinat Jumabayev (Kaz) drew with S. Nitin; Ganzorig Amartuvshin (Mgl) bt Abhijeet Gupta; B. Adhiban bt Neelotpal Das.
Women: Sakshi Chitlange drew with Tania Sachdev; Nomin-Erdene Davaademberel (Mgl) lost to Liya Kurmangaliyeva (Kaz); Srija Seshadri drew with Padmini Rout; Bhakti Kulkarni bt Nisha Mohota; Mrudul Dehankar drew with Vantika Agrawal; Nilufar Yakubbaeva (Uzb) drew with Aakanksha Hagawane; B. Mounika Akshaya lost to Divya Deshmukh; Eesha Karavade drew with A. Harshini; V. Varshini drew with Vo Thi Kim Phung (Vie); Soumya Swaminathan bt Parnali Dharia; Tejaswini Sagar lost to N. Priyanka; Mary Ann Gomes bt K. Priyanka.
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