Pranav holds Koshy

MUMBAI, Dec 3: Western Railway’s Pankaj Joshi let go a great chance to scalp the fifth seed when he drew with IM elect V Saravanan of BPCL in the second round of the Independence Cup Chess Tournament being played at the Andheri Sports Complex here today.

But in an upset, 14-year-old Pranav Akolkar of Pune held IM Verghese Koshy of ONGC to a draw. Saravanan, who has an elo rating of 2390, faced a menacing attack from Joshi against his King in a game arising out of a Benoni set up. Joshi forced Saravanan to give up a rook for a bishop but unnecessarily allowed counter play through which Saravanan gave perpetual checks and escaped to a draw.

Thirty players are in lead with two points each after the two rounds which included the top two seeds, Grandmasters Dibyendu Barua (2540) of Tata Steel and Pravin Thipsay (2450) of Union Bank.Barua and Thipsay won against youngsters, Valay Parikh (2125) of Gujarat and Rashmin Pulekar (2105).

Among some of the other significant results, Anup Deshmukh (2430) defeated IWMNisha Mohota (2115) of West Bengal while Rahul Shetty (2385) of Indian Airlines won against D Ravishankar (2200).