Meghna stuns Kunte, seven share lead at Commonwealth Chess

Meghna CH notched up a stunning victory over former national champion Abhijit Kunte to share the lead with six others after the third round of the Commonwealth Chess Championship here today.

Playing white side of Kann variation of Sicilian defence game, Meghna used her minor pieces to good effect in the middle game to register a memorable win in 38 moves.

Top three boards in the third round ended without decisive results.

Playing with black pieces in Ruy Lopez game, Deep Sengupta settled with half point against former national champion International Master G Akash, while Grandmaster deepen Chakkravarthy and national champion Grandmaster Lalith Babu were forced to split the point against Sammed Shete and International Master Ratnakaran respectively.

 

Debashis Das maintained his clean sheet after beating Koustav Chatterjee while Vishnu Prasanna outwitted Niranjan Navalgund.

In other important encounters, newly crowned national under-13 champion Aaryan Varshney held Grandmaster Swapnil Dhopade.

Sambit Panda and Arpita Mukherjee made their second consecutive draw against Grandmasters as they held Thejkumar and Sundarajan Kidambi.

Important Results Round-3 (Indians otherwise specified) :

IM Akash G (2.5) drew with GM Deep Sengupta (2.5); Sammed Jaykumar Shete (2.5) drew with GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (2.5); GM Lalith Babu MR (2.5) drew with IM Ratnakaran K (2.5); Niranjan Navalgund (2) lost to GM Vishnu Prasanna (3); GM Debashis Das (3) beat Koustav Chatterjee (2); Aaryan Varshney (2.5) drew with GM Swapnil Dhopade (2.5); IM Karthik Venkataraman (3) beat IM Watu Kobese of South Africa (2); IM Karthikeyan P (2.5) drew with WGM Mary Ann Gomes (2.5); Moksh Amit Doshi (2.5) drew with IM Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh (2.5); IM Nitin S (3) beat WIM Nandhidhaa PV (2); GM Laxman RR (3) beat FM Thilakarathne GMH of Sri Lanka (2); GM Praveen Thipsay (3) beat WFM Lakshami C (2); WFM Meghna CH (3) beat GM Abhijit Kunte (1.5); GM Vaibhav Suri (2.5) beat Rajesh Nayak (1.5); GM Thejkumar MS (2) drew with Sambit Panda (2); Mahitosh Dey (1.5) lost to IM Visakh N R (2.5); Ranveer Mohite (1.5) lost to Tejas Bakre (2.5); Arpita Mukherjee (2) drew with GM S Kidambi (2); Sankalp Gupta (2.5) beat WFM Divya Deshmukh (1.5); IM Siva Mahadevan (1.5) lost to Jubin Jimmy (2.5).