Commonwealth champion and second seed, Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua suffered a shocking defeat against International Master Adam Hunt of England in the first round of the Smith and Williamson British Chess Championship in Edinburg, Scotland, on Tuesday.
Other Indian stalwarts in action too failed to get off to good starts in the tournament, which began yesterday.
GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly was held to a draw by Englishman K Simon Williams, and GM Pendyala Harikrishna had to sweat it out before securing a full point against another Englishman, Craig Hanley, in the opening round.
GM Abhijit Kunte had a relatively easier outing against Steve Mannion of Scotland while Tejas Bakre defeated Andrew Greet of England.
International Masters Neelotpal Das and Srunderrajan Kidambi also registered victories, beating Andrew Muir of Scotland and Ameet K Ghasi of England respectively.
The Indian women in the fray had a mixed outing. But stealing the show was Woman Grandmaster norm holder Swati Ghate, who put it across her more famous compatriot and Commonwealth women's champion S Vijayalakshmi in an absorbing contest.
Except for Swati, it turned out to be a lacklustre outing for IWMs Nisha Mohota and S Meenakshi, who were on the receiving end against higher-rated IMs John Shaw of Scotland and Daniel Gormally of England.
National champion and WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy started off with an easy draw against IM Reefat Bin Sattar of Bangladesh while Eesha Karavade went down fighting to David Eggleston of England.
The 11-round championship is being played under accelerated pairing system that gives more chances to GM and IM norm aspirants. Hence most of the top players have to slog it out right from day one with many of them pitted against their opponents.
Top seed Vassilos Kotronias of Cyprus drew his opening encounter with fellow GM Colin Mcnab in 42 moves. Kotronias did try to make an impression with white pieces against the Pirc defence of Mcnab, who remained alert right till the very end. He exchanged pieces at regular intervals and steered the game to a level rook and pawn endgame.
Hunt forced Barua on the backfoot in the early middlegame arising from a French Winawaer where the latter played black.
It was a slightly worse queenless middlegame to start with and Barua had to think a lot to complicate matters.
However, the Indian fell under pressure and in the process lost one pawn for little compensation. Barua's job became more difficult as the clock ticked away and he eventually lost on time after the 36th move.
Harikrishna employed a commonly played variation of the Ruy Lopez and had a dynamically balanced middle game on hands.
Hanley got a protected passed pawn in the centre and in return Harikrishna got ample counter attack on the queenside.
It was on the 32nd move that Harikrishna uncorked a brilliant tactical solution to all his problems and Hanley soon lost an exchange for little compensation, paving way for the Indian to romp home in 42 moves.
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