Playing black in the opening round, the 37th seeded Kidambi (ELO 2334) offered a pawn sacrifice in the Kings Indian defence game which was not accepted by the higher rated Alexei (2527).

The 16-year-old Indian, who earned two International Master (IM) norms recently at Biel International Championship in Switzerland and the British Championships, made another pawn sacrifice on the 12th move which white accepted. But Kidambi got no compensation for the pawn and got into a slightly inferior position.

Alexei, however, did not go for a complication in the middle-game to take control of the position and struck to the one pawn advantage for the endgame, which turned out to be a simple draw.

Mohota was clearly lucky to get a full pointfrom the drawish end-game. Playing black, she chose Alekhine defence against the king pawn opening of Helen. On the 7th move, the Turkish player opted for `c5' which turned out be a wrong move as it exposed her king.

But Mohota could not take advantage of the position and went into the endgame with an extra pawn. White could have easily drawn the game but blundered in the ending and was forced to resign.

On the top board in the girl's section, top seed WGM Irina Krush of the United States was forced to share the point with Nice Jessica. In the boys section, top seed GM Ruslan Kasimzanovwon his game easily against Lopez Jose Martinez of Spain but GM Dervishi Erald of Albenia had to struggle for a draw against Peter Benkovic of Yugoslavia.