NEW DELHI: Little known Sambit Panda forced second-seeded Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri to take a draw by perpetual checks in 30 moves in the second round of the Commonwealth chess championship here on Wednesday.
Panda, rated 369 points below Suri, stayed in control and compelled his fancied rival to settle with half-a-point. On a day when 25 players shared the lead with two points, this was not the only draw involving a Grandmaster.
M.S. Thej Kumar, Abhijit Kunte and S. Kidambi were the other GMs who failed to score their second successive victory.
Jimmy Jubin, rated at a modest 2113, held Thej in 70 moves following perpetual checks. Kunte dropped half-a-point to Ranveer Mohite, rated 2089, after 30 moves.
Kidambi was kept on the board for 104 moves by K. Priyanka before a draw was agreed. Priyanka traded her knight for Kidambi’s last pawn to leave just the kings and Kidambi’s knight on the board.
The results (Indians unless stated):
Second round: Deep Sengupta (2) bt Shantanu Bhambure (1); Sambit Panda (1.5) drew with Vaibhav Suri (1.5); Deepan Chakkravarthy (2) bt Sakshi Chitlange (1); Baivab Mishra (1) lost to M.R. Lalit Babu (2); Vishnu Prasanna (2) bt Magana Ben (Ken, 1).
Arvinder Preet Singh (1) lost to Debashis Das (2); Swapnil Dhopade (2) bt Isuru Alahakoon (Sri, 1); Jubin Jimmy (1.5) drew with M.S. Thej Kumar (1.5); Abhijit Kunte (1.5) drew with Ranveer Mohite (1.5); Arpan Das (1) lost to V. Karthik (2).