Fancied players get off to smooth start at Chennai Open chess

: Fancied players led by Russian Grand Master Pavel Ponkratov got off to a fluent start in the 12th Chennai Open International GM Chess tournament, posting wins in the first round here on Saturday.

In the top board game, top-seed Ponkrantov outclassed S K Kanishk in an English opening game that lasted 29 moves.

The other leading players including Aleksej Aleksandrov, Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara (Peru) and Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia) registered comfortable victories.

The lower boards saw Tamil Nadu girl K M Shrija post an upset victory over International Master T U Navin Kanna while national under-11 champion Aakash G of Coimbatore defeated higher-rated International Master C Praveen Kumar.

A total of 284 players including 29 GMs and 23 International Masters are taking part in the tournament which offers a total prize money of Rs 15 lakh.

The tournament was inaugurated by India's first International Master Manuel Aaron.

Important results (Indians unless specified): 1st round: Pavel Ponkratov (Rus) beat S K Kanishk, Swayham P Das lost to Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo (Peru), Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia) beat Sahib Singh, M S Midilesh lost to Aleksej Aleksandrov (Belarus), Aleksey Goganov (Russia) beat Abhinav Chakrapani Santhalayan.

Mikheil Mchedlishvili Mikheil (Georgia) beat Rushyendra Chowdary Kantipudi, Ivan Rozum (Russia) beat Vivek Tiwari, Stanislav Bogdanovich (Ukraine) beat Hermon Dain Saldanha.

Alberto David (Italy) beat Rebecca Jesumarian, Alexei Fedorov (Belarus) beat A Krishan, N R Visakh beat Rudra S Pathak, Vishnu Menon lost to Yudin Sergei (Russia).