Top seed and defending champion Padmini Rout of Odisha was held to a draw by the world U-14 girls champion R Vaishali of Tamil Nadu in the opening round of the National Women's Premier Chess Championship at the Bengal Gallery ICCR here today.
The 12 player round-robin league, being organised by Diaspora Times under the aegis of Bengal Chess Association will continue till November 24.
Playing white, Vaishali tried to surprise her illustrious opponent by playing 'e3' on the first move, by taking the game along lesser known lines but it hardly surprised Padmini and the game later went into a Larsen's opening set up.
After the exchange of the major pieces on move 28 it was clear that the game was heading towards a draw.
In another tense struggle between two former champions, Tania Sachdev of Air India and Soumya Swaminathan of PSCB settled for a truce in a marathon 72-move battle.
Experienced WGM Swati Ghate of LIC opened her campaign in style as she made short work of Priyanka Nutakki of Andhra Pradesh in a King's Indian attack.
In another one-sided affair, V Varshini of Tamil Nadu got the better of her teammate K Priyanka in 30 moves.
