Abhijit Kunte shocks Ni Hua in Asian opener

Grandmaster and former national champion Abhijeet Kunte scored a crushing victory over fifth seed Ni Hua of China in the first round of 13th Asian Continental chess championship here today.
Kunte, who is fresh from a splendid show at the recently concluded Kolkata International open tournament, got off to a flier thanks to some imaginative display in the opening, and carried it well right till the end of the game at the Sharjah Chess club.
The Catalan opening by the Indian led to a small advantage and some wily manoeuvres by Kunte forced Ni Hua to go on defensive. It was a relentless display by Kunte as he dominated with a passed pawn on a queen side and later took two pawns to the seventh rank to finish the game in 41 moves.

On what turned out to be a generally good day for the Indians, third seed Krishnan Sasikiran started off in style beating Jehongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan, while other fancied Indians Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Abhijeet Gupta also took off on a positive note at the expense of Amirezza Pourramezanali of Iran and Munkhgal Gombosuren of Mongolia, respectively.
Indian Grandmasters -- B Adhiban, S P Sethuraman, G N Gopal, Deep Sengupta, Vaibhav Suri and Debashish Das -- also ended as the winners while on the flip side, former Asian champion Parimarjan Negi, M R Lalith Babu and Vidit Gujrathi were held to draws.

The nine-round championship, which is a part of the next world championship cycle saw an early upset on the top board too, as Bu Xiangzhi of China had to split the point with compatriot Gao Rui.
In the women's section being organised simultaneously, highest rated Indian International Master Tania Sachdev defeated Gu Tianlu of China. Tania, was surprised early as some withdrawal led to change of colours just before the round but the Delhi-based did not lose her composure and won a hard-fought game.