Chennai boy Thrish Karthik set the tone for the day, scoring an upset win over Grandmaster Suat Atalik of Turkey in the first round of the 10th Chennai Open International Grandmaster Chess tournament 2018 for Sakthi Group Dr N Mahalingam Trophy at The Vijay Park Hotel, Chennai here today.
Top seed GM Timur Gareyev of USA scored a comfortable victory in the top board, while the second board saw Russian Grandmaster Ivan Rozum shedding half a point to lower rated Harshal Patil.
In a Kings Indian Defence game that lasted 75 moves, Thrish got the better of GM Suat Atalik of Turkey. An end game lapse in the fourth hour saw Suat Atalik going an exchange down, which Thrish Karthik converted precisely in his favor.
Earlier the tournament was inaugurated by Arjuna Awardee and International Master Manuel Aaron, who made the first move against top seed GM Timur Gareyev. Present in the dais were Shri D V Sundar, Vice President, FIDE, Shri P Stephen Balasamy, Gen. Secretary, Tamil Nadu State Chess Association, Shri R Anantharam, Technical Director, Shri Nitin Shenvi, Chief Arbiter and Shri B Murugavel, Vice President, Tamil Nadu State Chess Association,
Important Results (Round 1) (Indians unless specified) Kumar S lost to Gareyev Timur (USA), Rozum Ivan (Rus) drew with Patil Harshal, Lakshmi C lost to Tiviakov Sergei (Ned), Soloedovnichenko Yuri (Ukr) bt Kumthekar Shubham, Ghelani Dhairya lost to Tukhaev Adam (Ukr), Sivuk Vitaly (Ukr) bt Godson Merlin E, Atalik Suat (Tur) lost to Thrish Karthik, Kanishk S K lost to Pruijssers Roeland (Ned), Karthikeyan P bt Rohit S, Deepan Chakkravarthy bt Samdani Sahil Sagar.
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