It was a good start for WIM Puteri Munajjah Az Zahraa who was able to hold her own and secured a first round draw against her much higher rated opponent – Spain’s WGM Ana Matnadze
It was a nail biting finish that took more than 4 hours to complete and in the end, despite having the slightly better exchange of the rook pair against bishop, rook and pawn, a draw was agreed on the 65th move between the two ladies.
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In the Men’s Section, the game between FM Sumant Subramaniam and GM Sevian took a wild spin in the opening phase of the game producing some mind boggling tactical chances for both players. But in the end, the more experience Sevian managed to continue the pressure for FM Sumant to concede their first round encounter. Despite that, it was also an interesting game as Sumnat had passed pawn on the c-file while Sevian exerted pressure on the King side.
The second game for both pair is set later today at 3:00pm (8:00pm Malaysian time) with the color reversed. FM Sumant will now handle the white pieces against Sevian while Munajjah, the black pieces agaist Matnadze. While Sumant may have an uphill task later tonight, the same still goes to Munajjah as her opponent now has the upper hand of dictating how the game would be played with the white pieces
