Chennai girl Saranya holds Ukrainian Grandmaster

On the leader-board with two points from two rounds were top seed GM Timur Gareyev of US who defeated Maharashtra girl Mrudul Dehenkar and Sergei Tiviakov of the Netherlands who scored over P Bala Kannamma. 

Sharing the lead with the top seeds were GMs Tukhaev Adam, Vitaly Sivuk (both Ukraine), Tran Tuan Minh (Vietnam), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan), Pruijssers Roeland (Ned), Horvath Adam, Czebe Attila (both Hungary), Deepan Chakkravarthy and R R Laxman (both India) among others. The 266-player,10-round Swiss tournament will end on January 25.

Top-board results (Round 2) (Indians unless specified) Gareyev Timur (USA) 2 bt Mrudul Dehankar (1), Tiviakov Sergei (Ned) 2 bt Bala Kannamma P (1), Saranya J (1.5) drew with Solodovnichenko Yuri (Ukr) 2, Tukhaev Adam (Ukr) 2 bt Tarini Goyal (1), Thanki Hemal Karsanji (1) lost to Sivuk Vitaly (Ukr) 2, Manu David Suthandram R (1) lost to Tran Tuan Minh (2), Pruijssers Roeland (Ned) 2 bt Chaithanyaa K G (1), Mythireyan P (1.5) drew with Karthikeyan P (1.5), Nguyen Phuoc Tam (Vie) 1 lost to Horvath Adam (Hun) 2, Karthik Venkataraman (2) bt Rajarishi Karthi (1), Balkishan A (1) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy J (2)