Kulkarni shocks GM Adhiban in Delhi International Chess

New Delhi: Maharashtra youngster Rakesh Kulkarni stunned fifth seed Indian Grandmaster B Adhiban in the opening round of the 11th edition of the Parsvnath Delhi International Chess Festival which got underway here on Saturday.

Apart from Adhiban, all the other top-ranked players registered comfortable victories to advance to the second round of the premier event category with full points in their kitty. Top seed Indian Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta started his campaign in style after defeating International Master B T Murali Krishanan of Railways while second seed Belarusian Grandmaster Aleksej Aleksandrov beat Himal Gusain. Third seed Grandmaster Magesh Chandran defeated Women Grandmaster Soumya Swaminathan and fourth seed Andrei Deviatkin of Russia made short work of Fide Master Sayatan Das. Local stars Vaibhav Suri and Sahaj Grover started their campaign on winning note as they defeated Prince Bajaj and Deepak Katiyar respectively in the first round. The other surprises of the first round came in the form of draws as International Master Praveen Kumar held seasoned Uzbek Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev and Grandmaster Henrik Teske of Germany forced split the point with Adarsh Jayakumar of USA. In the B category, all the top-ranked players registered victories without much struggle in the first round. PTI