Abhijit Gupta was the star of the day

Mumbai: Former national junior champion Abhijit Gupta created a major stir by holding top seed GM Nigel Short of England in the second round of the Commonwealth chess championship on Sunday.

Six players — GMs Krishnan Sasikiran, Pavel Smirnov (Russia), P. Harikrishna, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, IWM Dronavalli Harika and George Michel Akis (South Africa) — are leading the table with two points apiece.

Surya beat R.R. Laxman, Sandipan Chanda (1.5) defeated Anupama Gokhale, Neelotpal Das (1.5) outwit Vivek Nambiar, while Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury scored full point against Y. Sandeep. IM C.S. Gokhale held fifth seed GM Alexader Fominyh of Russia as did IM Sudhakar Babu against GM Stuart Conquest of England.

The hero of the day was Gupta, a 14-year-old from Bhilwara, who held the mighty Short. It was a Nimzo Indian defence where Gupta just stuck to the basics and made some good moves with white pieces.

Up against the Capablanca Variation, Short succeeded in winning a pawn on the edge of the board but that gave Gupta just enough time to co-ordinate his pieces. A timely piece sacrifice by the Indian later simplified the position to a great extent and the draw was agreed to after 40 moves.

Gupta had made his maiden IM norm in the Parsvnath International Open in Delhi and is now well poised to bag his second norm. (PTI)