JOIN USOvernight joint leaders Filipino Grandmasters Oliver Barbosa and Gomez John Paul maintained their lead with seven points after most of the top board battles in the eighth round ended without decisive results in the 10th Parsvnath International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex on Friday.
Barbosa and Paul settled for draws against Grandmaster Andrei Deviatkin of Russia and Mark Paragua of Philippines respectively.
In other encounters, International Master Rathnakaran held Debashis Das while GM Evgeny Gleizerov of Russia signed the peace treaty with former national champion Abhijit Kunte by repetition of moves.
Important results (Indians unless stated otherwise):
Round8: GM Andrei Deviatkin of Russia (6.5) drew with GM Oliver Barbosa of Philippines (7); GM Gomez John Paul of Philippines (7) drew with Mark Paragua of Philippines (6.5); IM Debashis Das (6.5) drew with IM Rathnakaran K (6.5); GM Evgeny Gleizerov of Russia (6.5) drew with GM Abhijit Kunte (6); GM Sandipan Chanda (5.5) lost to IM Shyam Nikil P (6.5); IM Kiril Kuderinov of Kazakhstan (6) drew with Ma Qun of China (6); IM Thej Kumar (6) drew with GM Deepan Chakkaravarthy (6); IM Lalith Babu M R (6) drew with IM Vaibhav Suri (6); IM Karthikeyan P (6) drew with GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan (5.5); GM Mikhail Ulibin of Russia (5.5) drew with FM Diptayan Ghosh (5.5); IM Vidit Santosh Gujarathi (5.5) drew with IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh (5.5); Abhishek Das (5) lost to IM Ashwin Jayaram (6); FM Rajesh VAV (5.5) drew with GM Neelotpal Das (5.5).