Neelotpal, Venkatesh suffer shock defeat in 2nd round

New Delhi, Jan 15 (UNI) After having it relatively easy in the first round, Grandmaster Neelotpal Das suffered a shock defeat at the hands of talented youngster K Priyadarshan while highly rated International Master M R Venkatesh went down to unheralded J Sridhar in the second round of the 5th Parsvnath International Chess tournament.

As if that was not enough, former World Under-10 champion Sahaj Grover held Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay to a creditable draw and four times National Champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly just about managed to escape with a draw with local coach J K Chowdhury at the at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here.

However, top seeded Grandmaster Alexei Dreev of Russia had it easy against Amardeep Bartakke while Manthan Chokshi proved no match for GM Yuri Drozdovskij of Ukraine.

Neelotpal Das arrived a little late for his second game and did not get any respite against young Priyadarshan who gave a consistent performance after opening with the king pawn. Das miscalculated and lost two Bishops for an imprisoned rook and never recovered.

Sahaj Grover, playing with whites troubled Pravin Thipsay for a long time before getting a half point against his more famous opponent. Thipsay traded the queens to stay in the game and following a series of exchanges, the players arrived at a rook pawn endgame that was agreed drawn. This was the first time that Sahaj drew with a Grandmaster in his career.

Ganguly survived by the skin of his teeth in a keenly contested game by J K Chowdhury. The National champion admitted he was just lost at one point in the game.

UNI