Playing with black pieces, sixteen-year-old Gahan clinched the tie in 30 moves.
Top-seeded M B Muralidharan outplayed Chandrakanth Jadhav of Goa in the opening round.
Vinay Kurthakoti of Dharwad District Chess Association (DDCA) and Amruth Herurkar registered easy victories on the first day of the event.
Nath Roopankar, A K Jagadish, Majumdar Shankar, Chauhan Joy, Abdul Majid, Thanki Hemal Krishanji, and P Sathyanarayan also bagged one point each.
Important results (round I): M G Gahan (Kar, 1) bt Dara Devadanam (0); Vinay Kurthakoti (Kar, 1) bt Gurudatta Joshi (0); V Raghavendra (Kar, 1) bt Amruth Herurkar (0), P Gopalkrishna (1) bt Ibrahim P Naik (0); M B Muralidharan (1) bt Chandrakanth Jadhav (Goa); Dave Kanthilal (Rajasthan, 1) bt Chinmay Hiremath (0); Santhu Mandal (West Bengal) bt J Darsha (0).
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