Kunal takes sole lead

Tamil Nadu’s Kunal M emerged the sole leader with seven points after the seventh round of the all-India Open FIDE-rated chess tournament here on Sunday. 

Kunal is followed by  O T Anilkumar of Kerala in the second place with 6.5 points.

The Karnataka trio of Prachura P P, Kishan Gangolli and Shyam Sunder H S share third spot with South Western Railway’s (SWR) Joydeep Dutta at six points each.  

Kunal beat BSNL’s Ram Krishnan in his seventh round match while Anilkumar got the better of Karnataka’s Vinayak Kulkarni.

Prachura defeated State-mate Durgesh K, Gangolli put it past Kerala’s Senbabu M B and Sunder beat Karnataka’s Ananya S.

Important results (Round VII): Kunal M (TN, 7) bt Ram S Krishnan (BSNL, 5.5); O T Anilkumar (Ker, 6.5) bt Vinayak Kulkarni (Kar, 5.5); Joydeep Dutta (SWR, 6) bt Barath M (Goa, 5); Durgesh K (Kar, 5) lt to Prachura PP (Kar, 6); Senbabu M B (Ker, 5) lt to Kishan Gangolli (Kar, 6); Shyam Sunder HS (Kar, 6) bt Ananya S (Kar, 5); Augustin A (Kar, 5.5) bt Nikhil R Umesh (Kar, 4.5); Nithin S Shetty (Kar, 4.5) lt to Gavi Siddayya (Kar, 5.5); Ajeesh Anthony (Ker, 5) drew Manasa H R (Kar, 5); Muralidaran R (TN, 5.5) bt Anant Prabhudesai (Goa, 4.5); Vaibhavi Jadhav (Mah, 4.5) lt to Priya V S S (Ap, 5.5); Shabdhik Varma (Kar, 5.5) bt Vashishta S (Kar, 4.5); Arjun Adappa (Kar, 5) bt Siddarth Murali (Kar, 4.5); Kantharaja N (Kar, 4) lt to Arjun Prabhu (Kar, 5); Swarnangshu Ghosh (Kar, 4) lt to Pankaj Sharma (Pun, 5); Visveshwar A (TN, 5) bt Sachin T V (Kar, 4); Sharanya V (Kar, 4) lt to Aravinda BR (Kar, 5); Reetish Padhi (Kar, 4.5) drew Thyagaraj M T (Kar, 4.5); Yashaskara Jois KR (Kar, 5) bt Shashwat S Mudenagudi (Kar, 4); Isha Sharma (Kar, 4) lt to Deepak Batra (Pun, 5).