GM Chakravarthy loses to Deshpande

Panaji, Sep 17 (UNI) Grandmaster Deepan Chakravarthy (ELO 2464) of PSCB lost to unfancied Anirudha Deshpande (ELO 2148) of Maharastra in just 42 moves of the Sicilian defence in the second round of the Monginis 46th National 'B' Chess championship, which is underway at the Damodar Sunsthan Zambaulim in South Goa.

Deshpande launched a kingside attack and cornered Chakravarthy, leaving him no choice either to lose mate or suffer a huge loss. So Chakravarthy chose to resign, causing the bigger upset so far, in the tournament.

Monginis brand ambassador and local star Bhakti Kulkarni (ELO 2166) demolished Ram Gupta (ELO 1943) of New Delhi in just 29 moves from the black side of the French defence to register her second consecutive win.

Another Dempo goodwil brand ambassador Ivana Furtado bounced back with a win, after her hard fought defeat to Asian junior runners-up women international master Padmini Rout. Ivana showed good attacking skills to notch up a win in round two.

The other bright star of the host Asian under-11 gold medalist Cyrus Pereira (ELO 1873), who held former under-18 girls World Champion Ramaswamy Aarthie (ELO 2265) of Indian Airlines to a draw in 47 moves of Queen's Gambit, declined variation.

There were suprisingly at least three international masters -- Sriram Jha of LIC, P Sethuraman from Tamil Nadu and C S Gokhale of Airlines, who lost as the round saw a veritable plethora of upsets.

Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi, Pravin Thipsay and Neelotpal Das all won their second round to set up a chase to the title in the days to come.

Meanwhile, unrated local lads Alfredo Menezes and Mohinish Naik stole the limelight by beating their fancied opponents.

Menezes used the Ruy Lopez opening to beat Krishna Udupa (ELO 2024) in 41 moves. While, Naik beat Khalil Ahmed (ELO 1913) of Assam in 56 moves of a Queen Gambit.

The world under-nine Bronze medalist Anirudh Bhat (unrated) held D K Chopra (ELO 2007) of CRSB in long endgame arising out of the pire defence. The other unrated Goans to draw were Parikshit Phaldesai and Snehil Shetty, causing jubilation in the Goan camp at the end of the second round.

UNI SRN SSS RKM DS1435