Press Trust of India
Tashkent, May 27: Orissa’s Padmini Rout started her campaign on a bright note in the women’s segment of the Asian Continental Chess Championships with a fluent victory over Uuriintuya Uurtsaikh of Mongolia here Friday. However, GM and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta was shocked by unheralded Fang Yan of China in a men’s match.
Playing black in the opening round Gupta made many unforced errors in the middle game to find himself on the wrong side arising out of a Sicilian defence and was outdone in 46 moves.
The highest-rated Indian Grandmaster in the fray, B Adhiban however had no difficulty in toppling the defence of Shamsiddin Vakhidov of Uzbekistan. The Indian was in his elements in tackling a Queen pawn game with white pieces and his attack came good with a pawn sacrifice early in the opening. It enabled Adhiban to close the match in 20 moves.
Vidit Gujrathi also got off to a flier giving a positional lesson to his lesser known opponent Bakhodir Kholmirzaev while winning in 34 moves. GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly was also at his best in crushing Tsogbayar Baterdene of Mongolia also in 34 moves.
Among the other Indians, SP Sethuraman was the winner with white pieces against Arif Abdul Hafiz of Indonesia.
It was a bit of a setback however, for former world junior girls’ champion Soumya Swamithan who was held to a draw by Sultana Sharmin Shirin. The Indian girl is the ninth seed in the event.
