JOIN USGrandmaster and National champion Abhijeet Gupta scored a hard-fought victory over compatriot B Adhiban in the second round of the ‘A’ group of Aeroflot International Open chess tournament here.
After a rather lacklustre show at the just-concluded Gibraltar International tournament where he will lose important rating points, Abhijeet seems to have recovered quite well in a short time and the game against Adhiban was a just indication.
Playing black, Abhijeet equalized easily in the Grunfeld defense and the correct result should have been a draw but for an over-ambitious approach by Adhiban who even spurned the peace proposal. After the dust settled Adhiban was left to find out a miraculous defense to save the day in the rook and minor piece endgame, an extremely difficult task for the human mind. Abhijeet won in 56 moves.
It turned out to be an excellent day for the higher ranked Indians in the premier group as Krishnan Sasikiran and Parimarjan Negi also scored their first victory in the tournament.
Sasikiran proved stronger than Ivan Popov of Russia with white pieces while Negi created excellent counter play to beat another Russian Sergey Grigoriants. Looking for his final Grandmaster norm, Vidit Gujrathi continued with his good form and held Sandipan Chanda to a draw.