JOIN USAfter a memorable victory against Sergey Volkov of Russia, Ravichandran continued the good work and has thus far recorded the best performance of his young career.
Third seed Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi also scored a fine attacking victory over Ghane Shojaat of Iran to be amongst the 32 leaders after the second round of the 45,000 USD prize money tournament.
The Indians had a decent outing with 2008 World junior champion Abhijeet Gupta also recording an easy victory over Women Grandmaster Myroslava Hrabinska of Ukraine.
Parimarjan found faults in black’s position quite early from a French defense opening and went for a direct attack against the king. Shojaat came up with his share of counter play on the queen side but by the time he could get his pieces to strike it was already too late.
Parimarjan crashed through the king side with his queen and rook and it was all over for the Iranian.
Former World junior girls’ champion D Harika scored a very quick victory to stake her claim as the best woman player in the event.