Chess: Parimarjan Negi holds Wojtaszek

Grandmaster and Asian champion Parimarjan Negi got off to a good start as he held top seed Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland to a draw in the AICF-AAI Chess Cup at the AAI institute on Friday. The first round saw some exciting games in the highest category tournament of the country with Abhijeet Gupta holding out Krishnan Sasikiran to a draw, and Ukrainian Anton Korobov also signing peace with Evgeny Alekseev of Russia. It was a tense affair for Negi after he made a slight error in the endgame arising out of a Grunfeld defense. Playing black, the Indian said he was quite satisfied with his preparation. ‘I played a home-cooked idea which worked quite well for me in the middle game as I equalised quite easily. It should have been an easy draw but I made this slight error that gave Radek (Wojtaszek) some chances.’ In the endgame, the Polish GM tried hard but could not really make an impact after running short of time.