Karthikeyan holds Popov

Hyderabad: Stunning upsets were the order of the day for the second straight day. International Master P Karthikeyan and Himanshu Sharma held top seeded Russian Grandmaster Ivan Popov and second seed Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia in the ongoing 2nd Hyderabad International Grandmasters Chess Tournament at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium here on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, YVK Chakravarthy and Delhi-based Prince Bajaj continued to be on a roll while accounting for more formidable opponents in International Masters Vahe Baghdasaryan of Armenia and MS Tej Kumar. Other local players who shared the limelight were Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad and Harsha Bharathakoti who did remarkably well while holding Grandmasters Neelotpal Das and Sudarjan Kidambi respectively.

GM Abhijit Kunte suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Vikramjit Singh from Indian Railways. Chennai Grandmaster event winner Aravindh Chithamabram held higher seeded Armenian Grandmaster Samvel Ter-Sahakyan while S Ravi Teja and Aniruddha Deshpande forced their higher rated rivals Grandmaster Levon Babujian of Armenia and Grandmaster Vasily Papin of Russia to sign peace treaty.

Category ‘A’ Important Round 2 results (India wherever not mentioned) :- Karthikeyan(1.5) drew Ivan Popov (1.5); Levan Pantsulaia (1.5) drew Himanshu Sharma (1.5); Hafizulhelmi Mas (1) lost to Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2) ; Lalith Babu M R (2) bt Soumya Swaminathan (1); Samvel Ter-Sahakyan (1.5) drew Aravindh Chithambaram (1.5); Shivananda B S (1) lost to Vladislav Borovikov (2); Girinath PDS (1) lost to Merab Gagunashvili (2); Alon Greenfeld (2) bt Murali Krishnan B T (1); Himal Gusain (1) lost to Arun Prasad (2) ; Azer Mirzoev (2) bt CRG Krishna (1) ; Ravi Teja S (1.5) drew Levon Babujian (1.5); Vasily Papin (1.5) drew Aniruddha Deshpande (1.5); Bhakti Kulkarni (1) lost to Mikhail Mozharov (2); Deepan Chakkravarthy (1) lost to Praveen Kumar (2); Arjun Tiwari (1) lost to Sinisa Drazic (2); Bahruz Rzayev (2) bt Visakh N R (1) ; Pratik Patil (1.5) drew Swapnil Dhopade (1.5); Thej Kumar (1) lost to Prince Baja (2)j; Kumaran B (1.5) drew Shardul Gagare (1.5); Neelotpal Das (1.5) drew with Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad (1.5).