KAVALA(Greece), July 25: Grandmasters Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Abhijeet Gupta will spearhead the Indian challenge in the Kavala International Open Chess Tournament that gets underway here today.
Fresh from his joint first finish at Paleochora tournament a couple of days back, Ganguly starts as the third seed in the tournament and will be hoping for an improved performance.
More famous as the second of World champion Viswanathan Anand, Ganguly won his last five games after an indifferent start to finish as the joint winner in Paleochora along with Andrey Rychagov of Russia.
Both Ganguly and Gupta share an identical 2627 rating and the latter starts as the fourth seed in one of his favourite hunting grounds.
In his last two outings in this tournament, Abhijeet Gupta has been a joint winner and will also be looking forward to an encore.
The tournament has just eighty odd players making a very strong field with 15 Grandmasters in the fray. Tigran Petrosian of Armenia starts as the top seed in the nine-round event.
Amongst Indians in the fray, Akshayraj Kore will be trying to become a Grandmaster from here. The Pune based scored his second GM norm at the Rhythmno International tournament ten days back. It was a superlative performance from Kore as he finished second in a very strong field. Now, just one norm shy, Kore has his chances to be the next GM from India. (PTI)
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