Glaring upsets mark third day

National champion GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly offered peace to Grandmaster K Sasikiran to end their battle royale in a draw on the third day of the Commonwealth Chess Championship at Mumbai on Monday.

The two with Smirnov Pavel and George Michelakis were on 2.5 points apiece.

On the day of glaring upsets, Grandmaster Nigel Short of England suffered another setback when International Master Verghese Koshy held the top seed to a draw for two points each.

IM Chandrashekhar Gokhale (2.5) conquered British Grandmaster Stuart Conquest (1.5) while Vishal Sareen (2.5) shocked Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda (1.5) in the major upsets of the day.

Charudutt Jadhav (1), the only blind participant, caused quite a flutter when he held South African Master David Gluckman to a draw. He is also the only blind chess player to have drawn with an International Master in the history of Commonwealth Chess Championship.

Local youngster Yashodhan Gogte (2) also joined the bandwagon when he outplayed Pakistan's International Master Mohammad Lodhi (1) by an attacking game in Evan's Gambit game. International Master Prathamesh Mokal (2.5) - teenager from Pune - surprised the latest Indian Grandmaster R B Ramesh (1.5) in Sicilian defence.

Important results - S S Ganguly (2.5) drew with K Sasikiran (2.5), Smirnov Pavel (2.5) drew with George Michelakis (2.5), D Harika (2) lost to P Harikrishna (3), Nigel Short (2) drew with Verghese Koshy (2), Fominkh Alexander (2.5) bt Abhijit Gupta (1.5), D V Prasad (2) drew with Iuldachev Saidali (2), Stuart Conquest (1.5) lost to Chandrashekhar Gokhale (2.5), Vishal Sareen (2.5) bt Sandipan  Chanda (1.5), Vakhidov Tahir (2.5) bt VS Sivanandan (1.5), S Satypragyan (1.5) lost to Abhijit Kunte (2.5), RB Ramesh (1.5) lost to Prathmesh Mokal (2.5), Praveen Thipsay (2) drew with Sudhakar Babu (2), Ravi Thandalam (2) drew with Iskusnykh Sergev (2), Atanu Lahiri (2) drew with Neelotpal Das (2), Sriram Jha (2) drew with Nisha Mohota (2), K Rathnakar (2) drew with Tejas Bakre (2), Nikhilesh Kumar (2) drew with S Kidambi (2), Niaz Murshed (2) drew with S Meenakshi (2), Safin Sukhrat (1) lost to S Roychoudhari (2.5 ), Ravi Lanka (1) lost to R S Mishra (2.5), V Vijayalakshmi (2) bt VS Negi (1.5).