Debashish Das beats Ni Hua in Fujaira opener

Grandmaster-norm holder Debashish Das came up with a fantastic effort to beat Ni Hua of China in the first round of Fujaira International Open chess tournament in the UAE on Wednesday.

Das, who won the National Challengers Championship a few months back, showed fine temperament and skills to tackle an out-of-sorts Ni Hua in a Sicilian defense game as black.

The Chinese missed the thread of the position when the players reached a structure similar to 'closed Spanish' and went haywire. It turned out be a decent outing for the Indian in the first round of this tournament that has as many as 30 Grandmasters in a field of 57 players.

International Master V Saravanan also did well to hold Grandmaster Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia though the Indian thought he had a good chance of winning after a favourable Ragozin opening.

As it happened in the game, Sarvanan missed a deep tactical stroke on move 18 and Mchedlishvili was soon back in the game with little to worry about.

The pieces got exchanged in a heap and the players reached a level rook and pawns endgame where the draw was a just result after 36 moves.

Amongst other Indians in the fray, Akshat Khamparia held GM Mircia-Emilian Parligras of Romania who played white.

The highest rated Indian in the fray, Abhijeet Gupta came good with his white pieces against compatriot Ankit Rajpara but not so easily.

Playing the white side of a Slav defense, Gupta came up with an opening surprise and seized the initiative but an oversight in the middle game cost him dearly.

Rajpara had a decent position on board soon after but he could not sustain the momentum with his clock ticking away. Abhijeet won an exchange and registered what looked like an easy win in the end.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly defeated Jasem Saleh of UAE with black pieces, while Sandipan Chanda conceded a draw to Ukrainian girl Vita Chulivska.

Important and Indian results, Round 1 (Indians unless specified): Ashwin Jayaram lost to Baadur Jobava (Geo); Liem Le Quang (Vie) beat Tejas Bakre; S Satyapragyan lost to Etienne Bacrot (Fra); Alexander Moiseenko (Ukr) drew with Zeng Chongsheng (Chn); V Vishnu Prasanna drew with Li Chao (Chn); Ni Hua (Chn) lost to Debashis Das; Abhijeet Gupta beat Ankit Rajpara; V Saravanan drew with Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo); Mircea-Emilian Parligras (Rou) drew with Akshat Khamparia; Anurag Mhamal lost to Yaroslav Zherebukh (Ukr); Eltaj Safarli (Aze) beat Sagar Shah; Aditya Udeshi lost to Constantin Lupulescu (Rou); Gadir Guseinov  (Aze) beat Arjun Bharat; Jasem Alhuwar (Uae) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly; Vita Chulivska (Ukr) drew with Sandipan Chanda.