No starting trouble for top seed Ponkratov Pavel

CHENNAI: The top seed had an easy day at the office in the opening round of the Chennai Open international chess tournament here on Saturday. No.1 seed Ponkratov Pavel got the better of SK Kanishk in round 1. The Russian GM employed the English opening and clinched the contest in 29 moves. Peru’s 18-year-old GM Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara is seeded second.Defending champion Pantsulaia Levan from Georgia is the third seed.
The Indian challenge will be spearheaded by GMs — NR Visakh, MR Venkatesh, Karthik Venkataraman, Vishnu Prasanna, Saptarshi Roy, Neelotpal Das, P Karthikeyan, Sundarajan Kidambi among others.
The opening day of the tournament saw Neyveli girl Shrija K M register an upset victory over International Master Navin Kanna T U. In another upset, Coimbatore boy and National U-11 champion Aakash G showed great promise defeating higher rated International Master Praveen Kumar C.
Earlier the tournament was inaugurated by Arjuna Awardee International Master Manuel Aaron who made the symbolic first move against Ponkratov Pavel. Present in the dais were Rohan Sable, General Manager, Hotel Novotel, G G Anantharaja, Vice President, TNSCA, B Murugavel, Chairman Organising Committee, R Srivatsan, Chief Arbiter, R Anantharam, Technical Director, Stephen Balasamy P, Gen Secretary, TNSCA and S Manikandaswamy, Vice President, TNSCA.
The 10 round Swiss tournament --- which concludes January 25 --- is seeing 29 Grandmasters and 23 International Masters vying for top honors.