Mumbai, June 17 (IANS) The 13-year-old Hriday Maniar, a promising local talent, held seasoned Slovak Grandmaster Manik Mikulas to a surprise draw, earning the biggest result of his young career in the first round of the Mumbai International Grandmaster Chess Tournament on Tuesday.

The tournament got off to an exciting start at the World Trade Centre, Mumbai, with Hriday’s sensational result stealing the spotlight in Round 1.

Despite a rating difference of nearly 500 points, Hriday played with remarkable poise and accuracy, showcasing flawless technique against his opponent, who is far more experienced than him. The result is being hailed as one of the biggest upsets of the opening round.

Barring this remarkable performance, the remaining 15 Grandmasters had no difficulty in overcoming their opponents to cruise into the second round of this 9-round Swiss tournament. The event has drawn 293 players from 18 countries, all competing for a total prize fund of ₹25.00 lakhs.

The tournament is organised by Indian Chess School under the aegis of the All India Chess Federation (AICF).

Key results:

Round 1

Levan Pantsulaia (1) beat Raman Siddharth B. (0)

Petrosyan Manuel (1) beat Gada Om (0)

Paichadze Luka (1) beat Shubh Kapur (0)

Nikitenko Mihail (1) beat Gogte Soumil (0)

Lalit Babu M R (1) beat Ayaan Trikha (0)

Gharibyan Mamikon (1) beat Chavan Aditya (0)

Savchenko Boris (1) beat Advik Reddy (0)

Panesar Vedant (1) beat Saranya Devi (0)

Sanikidze Tornike (1) beat Bhavya Gupta (0)

Deepan Chakkravarthy J. (1) beat Shahan Vohra (0)

Davtyan Arsen (1) beat Arjun Singh (0)

Nguyen Duc Hoa (1) beat Parkar (0)

Slizhevsky Alexander (1) beat Patlolla Indra Reddy (0)

Aleksandrov Aleksej (1) beat Shitiz Prasad (0)

Fedorov Alexei (1) beat Vageesh Swaminathan (0)

Budhidharma Nayaka (1) beat Raj Kapoor (0)

Neelotpal Das (1) beat Karthik Gopal G. (0)

Nithin Babu (1) beat Mithilesh P. (0)

Nguyen Van Huy (1) beat Laddad Aadhavan Atish (0)

Tologon Tegin Semetei (1) beat Gnanaseelan (0)

Gochelashvili Davit (1) beat Aabhas Kumar Srivastava (0)

Saravana Krishnan P. (1) beat Jagesia Daksh (0)

Manik Mikulas (½) drew Hriday Maniar (½)

–IANS

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