Press Trust of India
Al Ain (UAE), August 3: Padmini Rout won her opening round match in the women’s section against Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam while Debashis Das drew with Keshav Shrestha of Nepal in the open category as the Asian Continental Chess Championships which started here Monday. Padmini won in 47 moves while Debasahis agreed to a draw after 58 moves.
Padmini’s victory was all the more significant as she played with black pieces. But she dominated proceedings from the word go and kept up a constant pressure on her opponent. The women’s championship is part of next women’s World Championship cycle. However, only the winner from here will qualify for the next stage.
However, the most stunning result of the day came when IM K Rathnakaran caused a major upset, defeating seventh seed Grandmaster Zhong Zhang of Singapore in the first round. Rathnakaran turned the tables on the former Chinese after staring at a defeat for the major part of the game.
Grandmaster Koneru Humpy suffered a reversal in the opener as she went down to Asyl Abdyjapar of Kyrgyzstan in a game that the World No. 3 could have saved.
The Capablanca variation in the Nimzo Indian defense game gave Humpy equal chances in the middle game but she missed the thread and landed in a lost endgame after giving away a couple of pawns.
Meanwhile, highest rated Indian, Vidit Gujrathi put it across Bangladeshi Grandmaster Enamul Hossain to open his account in style. Krishnan Sasikiran was also quite up to the task in crushing Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan. Among the other Indians who recorded wins were Surya Shekhar Ganguly, SP Sethuraman and MR Lalith Babu.
