Round two of the Thailand Open 2013 – also the 13th Bangkok Chess Club Open – which is being played at the Dusit Thani Pattaya from 14-21 April saw few major but many small surprises with many half points being dropped by various contenders!
Experience of the tournament maybe counts as defending champion Nigel Short and previous winners Jan Gustafsson and Sune Berg Hansen are comfortable on two points as is the highly regarded debutant Koneru Humpy.
On the top ten boards, second seed Levente Vajda, China’s Lu Shanglei and Indonesia’s Susanto Megaranto gave up draws but joining them were fellow GMs Adam Horvath, Zoltan Varga, Sriram Jha, Shojaat Ghane and Yrjo Rantanen.
But a grandmaster was also beaten, Malaysia’s 14 year old Yeoh Li Tian adding yet another GM scalp to his growing collection with a comprehensive win over Hungary’s 11th seeded Jozsef Horvath.
The largest delegation is from China and they have sent many young talented players and all are showing great fighting spirit and challenging the second largest group, that of India for overall bragging rights.
Live games are at www.bangkokchess.com and the pairings and results of each round will be published at www.chess-results.com once all games are finished.
News and photo gallery by Peter Long (click on thumbnail for full size)
