By IANS
New Delhi : Grandmaster-norm holder Abhijeet Gupta suffered a shock defeat against seasoned Ram Prakash, while Grandmaster (GM) and four-time national champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly was held to a draw by Swapnil Dhopade in the third round of the sixth $1 million Parsvnath International Open chess tournament here Monday.
Gupta, keen to win, pushed his luck a bit too far with the rook, but, to his surprise, Prakash carried out counter play in style.
As a result, Gupta capitulated under time pressure and lost.
In another game, Dhopade, who is looking for his maiden International Masters norm, troubled Ganguly from the beginning and was quite content with half the point he earned after drawing parity with the GM.
The seeds are having a tough time in the tournament. However, in the third round, quite a few came unscathed with as many as 27 players coming out with a perfect 3/3 scores Monday.
Prominent among them were Indian GM Abhijit Kunte, Iranian GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, Igor Kurnosov of Russia, ELizbar Ubilav of Spain and Dzhumaev Marat of Uzbekistan.
Results: P. Shyam Nikhil (Ind, 2 points) lost to Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri, 3); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (Ind, 2.5) drew with Swapnil Dhopade (Ind, 2.5); M. R. Lalith Babu (Ind, 2) lost to Igor Kurnosov (Rus, 3); Abhijit Kunte (Ind, 3) beat K. Priyadarshan (Ind, 2); J. Ramakrishna (Ind, 2) lost to Elizbar Ubilava (Esp, 3); Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr, 3) beat Prasenjit Datta (Ind, 2); S. Mari Arul (Ind, 2) lost to Dzhumaev Marat (Uzb, 3); S. Rishipal Singh (Ind, 2.5) drew with Nguyen Anh Dung (Vie, 2.5); Enamul Hossain (Ban, 3) beat Yana Melnikov (Rus, 2); Debashish Das (Ind, 2) lost to Morteza Mahjoob (Iri, 3); Abhijeet Gupta (Ind, 2) lost to Ram Prakash (Ind, 3).