Unfancied Mrunal holds on 17th seeded Bharadwaj

Bangalore May 16: Unseeded Mrunal Bhengade of ICFAI created a major stir on the inaugural day of the 2nd Malleshwaram Association Karnataka State Chess Championship '07, by holding the highly regarded H G Bharadwaj (2013) in the first round tie played here at Malleshwaram premises on Tuesday.

In a strange game arising out of Caro Kann defense, Mrunal, who had Bhardawj in the receiving end for the latter's laxity in the middle game, strangely enough offered a draw on the 17th move which was gleefully accepted by Bharadwaj.

Arjun Bharat of DPS, Yelahanka, on the other hand, registered a stunning victory over FIDE rated and 39th seed M Vigram of Bishop Cotton Boys School. Arjun tactfully outmaneuvered his fancied opponent to win in 39 moves.

Smooth sailing for top seeds:

Top players had an easy outing in the opening round. FIDE Masters (FM) N Sanjay and B S Shivanandan, along with World Champion U-10 Girish Koushik, warmed up with comfortable wins.

Top seeded N Sanjay of Income Tax Dept and Shivanandan had a cake walk over B N Harish and Jagruthi respectively, while chess prodigy Girish Koushik beat Manikandan.

FMs Aravid Shetty, Sriram Sarja and Tejkumar were also among the winners.

Results (First Round):

Sanjay N (1 pts) bt Harish B N; Shivanandan (1) bt S Jagruti; Thejkumar (1) bt Kaushik H S; R Kaushik lost to Sriram Sarja (1); Kavitha lost to Aravind Shastri (1); Petros Valden (1) bt Keerthan Prabhu; Mrunal Bhangade (0.5) drew with H G Bharadwaj (0.5); Keerthana Nagraj lost to Venkatasubramani (1); Manjunath (1) bt Koushik V P; Krish Tejus Bharat lost to Sunil Shetty (1); Suraj M (1) bt Lenita Mathais; Mani L lost to Gavisiddaiah (1); Girish Koushik (1) bt Manikandan; Mayank Jain lost to Stany G A (1); Anil Shetty (1) bt Md Rafique; Meghana Belavadi lost to Gautam J K (1); Yashas D (1) bt Megharaj; Vishwas Saralaya (1) bt Muralidhara G K; A Nagaraj lost to Niranjan Navalgund (1) ; Raghuraman (1) bt Namratha G M

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