Gusian stuns Trang; Chanda held in Parsvnath Open Chess

New Delhi: India`s Ramnath Bhuvanesh held compatriot Sandipan Chanda to a creditable draw while Chandigarh youngster Himal Gusian stunned Hungary`s Hoang Thanah Trang in the third round of the 10th Parsvnath International Open Grandmaster Chess tournament on Monday.

Earlier in the second round, Maharashtra youngster Pratik Patil and Chinese lad Bai Jinshi opened the casualty list of the tournament by upsetting eighth seed Ukranian Grandmaster Mikhailo Oleksienko and Russian Grandmaster Evegeny Gleizerov respectively at the Ludlow Castle Sports Complex. Playing black side of Scheveningen variation of Sicilian Defence, top seed Grandmaster Chanda pressed hard for a decisive result with his double bishop combination against bishop and knight but International Master Bhuvanesh stood firm to deny him full point and singed the peace treaty after 67 moves. In another important match of the day, playing white side of McCutcheon variation in Classical line of French defence, Himal gained upper hand in the middle game and uprooted the defence of Hungarian Grandmaster in 86 moves. However, former national champion Abhijit Kutne continued to make merry at the expense of Jharkhand youngster Abhishek Das and Praveen Thipsay overcame G B Joshi in their third round encounters. But other Indian Grandmasters in fray, Neelotpal Das, Deepan Chakkaravarthy and Laxman failed to get decisive results in their favour and split the point against S L Narayananan, Shardul Gagare and Anurag Mhamal respectively. Seasoned campaigner Ravi Hegde held second seed Belarus Grandamster Aleksej Aleksandrov while Sameer Kathmale achieved a creditable draw against third seed Ukrainian Grandmaster Kravtsiv Martyan. N Surendran and Sidhant Mohapatra also produced the same results against their fancied rivals -- fourth seed Grandmaster Mikhail Ulibin of Russia and Grandmaster Henrik Danielsen of Iceland. PTI