Georgian GM Levan Pantsulaia, fresh from his Delhi Open title victory, posted a hard-fought win over Chennai's J Saranya in the second round of the 11th Chennai Open International Grand Master Chess tournament here Saturday.
With two points, he shares the lead with GMs Ivan Rozum and Ivan Popov (both Russia), Luka Paichadze (Georgia), Aleksej Aleksandrov, Kirill Stupak (both Belarus), Raset Ziatdinov (USA), Tran Tuan Minh (Vietnam),
Megaranto Susanto (Indonesia), Attila Czebe (Hungary), Manik Mikulas (Slovakia) Sundararajan Kidambi and R R Laxman (both India), among others.
In a Sicilian game, Saranya held her own against Pantsulaia till the very end. The knight and pawn ending offered minor chances for the Georgian as he squeezed out a tough win after 108 moves.
It was the last game to finish, showing the resilience of Saranya against the second-seeded GM.
The day saw seeded players enjoying a smooth sailing.
On the second board, talented Chennai boy Rajarishi Karthi went down to Grand Master Ivan Rozum.
With some original play in Queens Gambit, Rajarishi rattled the Russian and looked poised for an upset win. But a speculative sacrifice late into the middle-game did him in and he gave up after 40 moves.
There were a few draws in the main playing hall, where the lower seeded players fought tooth and nail managing to hold higher seeds to a draw.
Experienced Kolkata Grandmaster Neelotpal Das drew with fellow Indian Karthik Rajaa, while Rakesh Kumar Nayak snatched half a point from International Master Muhammed Khusenkhojaev of Tajikistan.
Local favourites-Grand Masters Deepan Chakkravarthy, Sundararajan Kidambi and defending champion Laxman notched up comfortable victories.
The 10-round tournament carrying a prize fund of Rs 15 lakh concludes on January 25.
Results: Round 2 (Indians unless specified): J Saranya (1) lost to Levan Pantsulaia (Geo) 2, Ivan Rozum (Rus) 2 bt Rajarishi Karthi (1), Rathneesh R (1) lost to Ivan Popov (Rus) 2, Luka Paichadze (Geo) 2 bt Shiva Pavan Teja Sharma U (1), P Bala Kannamma (1) lost to Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr) 2, Erigaisi Arjun (2) bt Md Abzid Rahman (B'desh) 1, Dahale Atul (1) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy J (2).
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