Chennai based Ram S Krishnan (BSNL) held top seed Grandmaster Boris Grachev of Russia to a draw in the second round of the 8th Chennai Open 2016 for Sakthi Group Dr. N. Mahalingam Trophy, held at Tamil Nadu State Chess Association, Nehru Stadium, Chennai here today. In an interesting English game that lasted 29 moves, Ram S Krishnan surprised the Russian Grandmaster with his King march to the queen-side. An effective blockade fetched the Indian a comfortable draw.
Official website/ Standings and statistics
Sharing the lead with 2/2 score were GMs Ivan Popov, Mozharov Mikhail, Demchenkov Anton (all Russia), R R Laxman (India), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan), Neverov Valeriy, Sivuk Vitaly, Tukhaev Adam, Bernadskiy Vitaliy, Solodovnichenko Yuri (all Ukraine), Nguyen Huynh Minh Huy (Vietnam) among others.
This annual Grandmaster Open in Chennai offer possibilities for International Master and Grandmaster Norms. The tournament has the confirmed participants from ten countries with 20 Grandmasters, 2 Woman Grandmasters and 23 International Masters among 73 titled players. This ten round Swiss System concludes on Monday, 25th Jan, 2016.
Round 2 Results (Indians unless specified):
Ram S Krishnan 1.5 drew with Grachev Boris (Rus) 1.5,
Popov Ivan (Rus) 2 beat Shreyansh Daklia 1,
Demchenko Anton (Rus) 2 bt Phoobalan P 1,
Hegde Ravi Gopal 1 lost to Solodovnichenko Yuri (Ukr) 2,
Sivuk Vitaly (Ukr) 2 bt Sekar B,
Hirthickkesh P R 1 lost to Mozharov Mikhail (Rus) 2,
Ramanathan Balasubramaniam 1 lost to Tukhaev Adam (Ukr) 2,
Bernadskiy Vitaly (Ukr) 2 bt Surendran N 1,
Chakravarthi Reddy M 2 bt Gabrielian Artur (Rus) 1,
Ernst Sipke (Ned) 1.5 drew with Vignesh B 1.5
FIDE Arbiter Aarthie Ramaswamy along with IM Praveen Kumar & GM Deepan Chakkravarthy watching the game between IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh and Debashish Dutta
Joint leader GM Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan)
GM Demchenko Anton (Russia) playing Phoobalan P (India)
Grandmaster Alberto David (Italy)
