NATIONAL A CHESS

Visakhapatnam: Grandmaster Koneru Humpy began her campaign with a draw with GM Abhijit Kunte in the second round of the 42nd National A chess on Sunday.

GM Dibyendu Barua, defending champion GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, GM Sandipan Chanda, Roktim Bandyopadhyay, Neelotpal Das and Deepan Chakravarthy emerged early leaders with 1.5 points each in the 19-round event.

Newly crowned world under-14 girls? champion Dronavalli Harika succumbed to her second successive defeat, going down to Das, who played white. In another game, Barua beat Abhijit Gupta of Rajastan in a Slav defence game.

Another debutant, Deepan Chakravarthy of Tamil Nadu defeated Rahul Shetty of Indian Airlines from the black side of a Sicilian classical game.