Top seeded Nigel Short of England was held to a draw by Indian grandmaster Sundararajan Kidambi from PSPB in the 19th International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament at Gorky Sadan here today.
In a Caro Kann game, Nigel Short, who had played the World championship finals against the then world no.1 Kasparov broke open the castled king side of Sundararajan Kidambi in 19th move.
After nine moves, Short exchanged the queens, leaving more disadvantageous pawn islands to Kidambi.
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Short managed to get two pawns, leading to a rook vs rook and two isolated pawns ending.
Though Short managed to cut his opponent's king approaching his marching pawn, Kidambi defended accurately to extricate half a point.
On the second board, Maharashtra youngster Kathmale Sameer cornered glory by holding second seeded Sergey Fedorchuk of Ukraine in a well fought 63-move game.
Fedorchuk gave up his knight aiming to promote his pawn to a new piece, but Kathmale gave back the knight to force a draw.
Rathnakaran of Railways lost a bishop very quickly, allowing the third seeded Russian grandmaster Konstantin Landa to exchange pieces at will.
Though Rathnakaran had four connected pawns in the end game, Landa's outside passer pawn on b-file, supported by the extra night fetched a point to him.
In a Sicilian defence adopted by Akshat Kamparia of Railways, former Under-16 world champion B Adhiban of PSPB positioned his bishop and knight in advantageous squares to post a comfortable win in just 25 moves.
Former age category world champions S P Sethuraman of PSPB and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi also began their campaign well, scoring fluent victories.
Promising youngster IM Dipatayan Ghosh of Bengal brought cheers to the local fans by beating Bangladesh FM Kh. Animul Islam.
GM Neelotpal Das and national women champion Mary Ann Gomes also recorded resounding victories over their respective opponents.
