SBI Life All-Maharashtra FIDE Rating Chess Tournament
Tenth seed Vedant Panesar (ELO 1849) survived a scare before managing a draw against Rahat Mhatre (ELO 1393) in round-3 match of the Rs 1.50 lakh prize-money SBI Life All-Maharashtra FIDE Rating Chess Tournament. which is being played at the Don Bosco High School, Borivali on Thursday.
IM Vikramditya Kulkarni (right) in action against Dayanand Naik during a round-3 match
Unseeded Mhatre, who is rated nearly 450 points below Panesar, came out clearly better in the the Sicialian Defense opening and in the middle-game managed to win the advantage of a Pawn. However, he was not able to convert the material advantage into a win and had to be content with a draw after a marathon 100 moves.
Meanwhile the other top-seeded players had easy outings in their respective third round matches. Top-seeded IM Vikramditya Kulkarni, FM Avinash Awate, Amardeep Bartakke, Ketan Boricha, Chirag Satkar and Shubham Kumthekar scored victories over their respective rivals to lead this 312 players field with a full score of 3 points each.
Seven more rounds remains to be played in this championship.
Key Results of Round-3: IM Kulkarni Vikramaditya (3) bt Naik Dayanand (2), FM Awate Avinash S (3) bt Shah Jeet (2), Ruhaan Mahindru (2) lost to Bartakke Amardeep S. (3), Boricha Ketan (3) bt Mahajan Akash (2), Pawar Rahul (2) lost to Satkar Chirag (3), Arun Tripathi (2) lost to Kumthekar Shubham (3), Gajengi Rajababu (3) beat Khan Zaheer (2), Mhatre Rahat Rahul (2.5) drew with Panesar Vedant (2.5), Gawai Sudhir (2) lost to Patil Ketan (3), Krishna Malay (2) lost to Joglekar Abhijit (3).