Dibyendu Barua had an easy victory

Visakhapatnam: Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury sprang a major surprise by outwitting Grandmaster Koneru Humpy in the fourth round of the 42nd National A chess meet at the Waltair Club here on Monday.

It turned out to be a better day for higher seeds otherwise as defending champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly and former champion Dibyendu Barua coasted to easy victories over Deepan Chakravarthy and Rahul Shetty, respectively.

Amongst minor flutters, Sandipan Chanda was held by women GM Dronavalli Harika for her first point, while Tejas Bakre had to part with a half point against Sriram Jha.

As things stand now in the 19-player event, Surya, Barua and Neelotpal Das share the lead with 2.5 points, while Chanda and P. Konguvel are close on heel with two points along with Saptarshi.

Fifteen more rounds remain in the event and Monday is the first of the double-round days.

It was a keenly-contested game between Saptarshi and Humpy. The opening featured the King?s Indian attack wherein Saptarshi, white, held the initiative for the major part.

Humpy blundered a piece on the 25th move before eventually resigning on 40.

Rahul Shetty?s nightmare continued as he crashed to his third defeat in as many games. Adding to his misery was Barua, who was quite clinical in his 69-moves effort with white pieces.

Neelotpal Das prevailed over Roktim Bandyopadhyay in a Slav Defence, Botvinnik variation game from the black side in 28 moves.

S. Kidambi defeated Suvrajit Saha in a marathon 91-moves game. Showing his penchant for long games for the second day running after his 90-moves duel in round two, Kidambi eventually pulled the string after Saha failed to sustain the pressure.

In other important games, Surya Sekhar made short work of Chakravarthy in 28 moves while Konguvel got the better of Abhijit Gupta in 35 moves. Abhijit Kunte had a bye. (PTI)