Commonwealth Chess Championship: Joshi shocks Thejkumar

Govind Ballabh Joshi (Air India) with a rating of 2078, playing with white pieces in the 16th board, shocked eighth seeded Grand Master M.S. Thejkumar of Mysuru (Rating 2495), in the fourth round of the Commonwealth Open Chess Championship 2018, played at Delhi on Friday. After four rounds, Thejkumar has secured 2 points and is placed 69th in the rankings. In the first round, Thejkumar had a good win over WIM Hamid Rani of Bangladesh and in the second and third rounds, drew with Jubin Jimmy of India and Sambit Panda of Odisha. IM S. Nitin of Railways emerged as the sole leader with 4 points from 4 rounds. He is followed by IM Karthik Venkataraman (AP), GM R.R. Laxman (Rly), WFM C.A. Meghana (Rly) and GM Debasis Das (Odisha) with 3.5 points are placed from second to fifth in the rankings after four rounds. In the girls U-12 section, Mysuru's Prasiddhi Bhat has secured 2 points from four rounds and is placed 28th in the rankings. In the girls U-10 section, Mandya's A.N. Shefali as secured 3 points from four rounds and is placed 13th in the rankings. Mysuru's Yashika Joshi (2 points-23rd) and Mandya's D. Jaanvi (2 points - 27th) are also faring well in the Championship.