National Chess Championship 2024: Abhijeet Gupta loses to Vignesh Advaith Vemula; Surya Shekhar notches up fourth win

After the quiet of the past three days, Tuesday proved quite stormy at the National chess championship.

Some top Grandmasters lost, a few others were held. The No. 1 seed Surya Shekhar Ganguly, however, notched up his fourth win in a row at the RPS International School. He is among the nine leaders, on four points, with seven rounds remaining.

Seeds two to four are not in that list: the No. 2, Abhijeet Gupta, after a disappointing draw in the previous round, was beaten by Vignesh Advaith Vemula who is rated 394 Elo points below; the No. 3 and defending champion S.P. Sethuraman was forced to split the point with P. Shyaam Nikhil in the day’s longest game, lasting 111 moves; fourth seed Diptayan Ghosh drew with Swapnil Dhopade in just 18 moves.

There were more surprises: M.R. Venkatesh turned the table on the sixth seed and fellow Tamil Nadu player P. Iniyan, avenging his defeat at the last Nationals. “This is the third time in a row we are meeting in this tournament, and now the scores are equal,” Venkatesh said after winning in 32 moves from the white side of a Sicilian Alapin.

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The day also saw former champion and 14th seed M.R. Lalith Babu going down to Raihaan Zahid.