It was a disappointing day for Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, as she suffered a shocking defeat in the second round and barely managed to garner full points in the next in the Parsvnath International chess tournament in Delhi on Friday.
Humpy was forced to bite the dust by Tamil Nadu's C Praveen Kumar in the morning session, while in the evening, the Asian women's champion was given a run for her money by local boy Himanshu Kumar, who eventually surrendered the initiative and lost in 56 moves.
Earlier, in the morning, Praveen gained the advantage in the middle game to inflict a rare defeat on Humpy in 50 moves.
Youngest Commonwealth champion Pendyala Harikrishna also went through anxious moments in the morning but garnered full points from both encounters to remain in joint lead with eight more rounds to go.
On the top boards, British champion and Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte played a quiet draw with former Commonwealth champion Atanu Lahiri, while Surya Shekhar Ganguly also drew against G B Joshi of Indian Airlines in the third round.
Top seed GM Dmitry Svetushkin was held to a draw by WGM Aarthie Ramswamy.
Double Grandmaster-norm holder R B Ramesh moved in to the joint lead with a swift victory over O T Anil Kumar of Kerala, while International Master Lanka Ravi of ONGC kept his slate clean, defeating former national champion Rafiq Khan.
International Master Neeraj Kumar Mishra of TISCO won with black pieces against Mohammed Javed of Bangladesh to join Ramesh and Lanka Ravi on 3.0 points.
S Sujatha of Tamil Nadu upset state mate and International Master-norm holder R R Laxman while IM Neelotpal Das, playing with white, went down against Abhijeet Gupta.
The initial rounds witnessed many quick draws, as players reserved their energies for the later rounds.
Important third round results: Aarthie Ramaswamy 2.5 drew with Dmitry Svetushkin (MDA) 2.5, P Harikrishna 3 beat Gurpreet Pal Singh 2, A Kunte 2.5 drew with Atanu Lahiri 2.5, G B Joshi 2.5 drew with S S Ganguly 2.5, Tahir Vakhidov (UZB) 2.5 drew with Somak Palik 2.5, R B Ramesh 3.0 beat O T Anil Kumar 2.0, Lanka Ravi 3.0 beat Rafiq Khan 2.0, Arghyadip Das 2.5 drew with S Kidambi 2.5, J S Gokhale 2.5 drew with N Sudhakar Babu 2.5, C S Gokhale 2.5 drew with Vikas Sharma 2.5, S Poobesh Anand 2.5 drew with Mithelesh Srivastav 2.5, Mohammed Javed (BAN) 2.0 lost to N K Mishra 3.0.
