Dave holds second seeded Lenic

New Delhi: Air India`s Shiv Shankar Dave held second seeded Grandmaster Lenic Luka of Slovenia while L Barath of Tamil Nadu drew with 10th seeded Kazakh Grandmaster Rinat Jumbayev on the opening day of the 8th Parsvnath International Open Chess Tournament. Apart from Lenic and Jumbayev, almost all top seeded players of the tournament, which include a record 21 Grand Masters, posted easy victories to advance to the second round with full points in their kitty. In another interesting incident, third seed Gahem Maghami Ehsan of Iran arrived at the tournament hall four hours late as his flight got delayed due to bad weather. By the time he reached the hall, his opponent and young Kerala lad Narayanan S L had already awarded the walk over point.But Narayanan had shown great sportsman spirit to play the match against his fancied rival even though he went down in the end. Top seeded Grandmaster Le Quang Liem of Vietnam had an easy outing against Chittaranjan Bhuyan.Among the Indian players, Grandmasters R R Laxman, Dibyendu Barua and Deepan Chakkravarthy had an easy day at the office as they beat Nirbhay Nanda, P K Jain and T Chitaranjan respectively. PTI