Top seeds had a difficult day, with West Bengal’s Diptayan Ghosh just managing to emerge unscathed and Gujarat girl Sweety Patel facing a shock defeat in the first round of the 21st National under-9 chess championship for boys and girls at the St Joseph’s Pre-University Composite College here on Friday.

Tough challenge

Diptayan had to ward off a stiff challenge from Gujarat’s Maniar Tirth on the top board in the 11-round Swiss league format championship. The Bengal boy won the game in 70 moves, but not with out a scare from his rival.

Diptayan, who played black in Alekhine defense, found himself in a state of bother in the middlegame when Tirth got a bishop advantage. Diptayan then promoted his pawn to queen and played a much better endgame to win after a two-and-a-half-hour battle.

Crucial error

However, fancied Sweety went down to Gujarat State-mate Megha Gupta in 72 moves. Sweety, who played the queen’s gambit opening, made a crucial error in allowing Megha to promote her pawn to queen when a draw was imminent.

Meanwhile, Karnataka’s fifth seed Akshay Bharadwaj beat Naga Sampath and sixth seed Satvik M won against Naik Rishubh Naresh of Goa in the boys section.

Among girls, Andria D’Souza, Prerana S Bharadwaj and Priyanka S Bharadwaj scored easy victories to keep Karnataka’s challenge going.

Important first-round results (prefix denotes seeding):
Boys:

Maniar Tirth (Guj) lt to 1-Ghosh Diptayan (WB, 1); 2-Mahapatra Sidhant (Ori, 1) bt Mayank G Jain; Mohit Akash S (TN) lt to 3-Kumar S (TN, 1); 4-Mohineesh (AP, 1) bt Mrityunjay Abhijeet Bhanja (Ori); Naga Sampath lt to 5-Bharadwaj Akshay (Kar, 1); 6-Satvik M (Kar, 1) bt Naik Rishubh Naresh (Goa); Naman Agarwal (WB) lt to 7-Hemanth Kumar P (AP, 1); 8-Shaikh Nubairshah (Mah, 1) bt Narayanan M R (TN); Narayanan S L (Ker, 1) bt 9-Arjun Bharat (Kar); 12-Krishna Teja N (AP, 1) bt Nikhil R Umesh (Kar).

Girls:

1-Sweety Patel (Guj) lt to Megha Gupta (Guj, 1); Meghana T C (Kar) lt to 2-Shoumi Mukherjee (WB, 1); 3-Meghna C H (Ker, 1) bt Meghana Upadhay (MP); 4-Mythili Ranjan (Kar) lt to Mahalakshmi M (TN, 1); 5-Monnisha G K (TN, 1) bt Nandini T R; Neha S Byali (Kar) lt to 6-Ashwini U (TN, 1); Ivana Fartuda (Goa, 1) bt Niharika Tapadia (Goa); Aditi B Shete (Kar) lt to Nishi M Iyer (WB, 1); Andria D’Souza (Kar, 1) bt Poorvaja S; Prerana S Bharadwaj (Kar, 1) bt Balivada Saharitha; Balivada Sahasriya lt to Priyanka S Bharadwaj (Kar, 1).