Sayantan Das

Calcutta: It was all quiet in the 21st The Telegraph Schools’ Chess Championship, being presented by Himani Sona Chandi Chawayanprash and organised by Alekhine Chess Club, at the Gorky Sadan on Wednesday.

And that was on expected lines. With a mammoth 380 participants vying for top honours, it would be some time before the top seeds meet play against each other.

On Wednesday, the seeds had yet another effortless round as most of them won their respective games with relative ease.

Top seed Sayantan Das of Scottish Church Collegiate School was presented with a win on a platter by G Avyakth of Etasi Timpany School, Andhra Pradesh in 30 moves.

Avyakth blundered his queen, for no apparent reason — on the 21 st — move after which it was curtains for him.

Second seed, Satyajit Kundu of Vivekananda Mission School beat State U-13 girls champion Bidita Shenoy of Delhi Public School, Ruby Park with the white pieces in an Alekhine Defence in 22 moves.

Prince Bajaj of Delhi Public School, Ghaziabad got the better of Ayush Bardhan of Don Bosco in 46 moves in an Irregular Queen’s Pawn Opening.

Diptayan Ghosh of South Point won the queen of Bikranta Ghosh of M.C. Kejriwal Vidyapith on the 19 th move and went on to checkmate his opponent in 29 moves.

Chadrasish Majumdar of St Xaviers opted for his favourite Pirc Defence against Bibaswan Ghosh of Bidhannagar High School and won a central pawn on the 26th move after which his material advantage decided the fate of the game.

Aubhropratim Manna of Don Bosco, Park Circus won a long game against W Bigyananda Singh of Manipur with the black pieces in a little-played Bird’s Defence.

Meanwhile, four Bangladeshi players eventually arrived and played their second round games.

Top board results

G Avyakth(1) lost to Sayantan Das (2); Satyajit Kundu (2) bt Bidita Shenoy(1); Ayush Bardhan(1) lost to Prince Bajaj (2); Diptayan Ghosh (2) bt Bikranta Ghosh(1); Bibaswan Ghosh(1) lost to Chandrashish Majumdar (2); Bigyananda Singh (1) lost to Aubhropratim Manna (2); Bipraditya Mukhopadhyay (1) lost to Sayan Bose (2); Samrat Ghorai (2) bt Chandramouli Gupta(1); Biswadeep Saha (1) lost to Aditya Chakraborty (2); Dhee Sankar (2) bt Debangshu Chakrabarti (1).