Sandipan Chanda creates a flutter

CALCUTTA, FEBRUARY 7: IM-NORM holder Sandipan Chanda of Goodricke National Chess Academy caused a major upset by defeating Grandmaster Toni Nazdoski of Makedonia in the second round of the 11th Goodricke International Open Chess Tournament at Gorkha Sadan on Monday.

Seven players-GM Gregory Kaidanov US, GM Jozsef Horvath Hun, Sriram Jha, JS Gokhale, Suvrajit Saha, IM Arun Bhaskar Vaidya, Gurpreet Pal Singh and Aarthie Ramaswamy share the lead with two points each to their credit.

IM RB Ramesh Ind earned a creditable draw by holding top seed GM Vladimir Akopian Arm. National champion IM K Sasikiran remained on course for his third and final GM norm by drawing against GM Alexander Goloschapov of Ukraine in 18 moves.