Aravind consolidates position

The overnight sole leader Chennai’s Ram Aravind extended his lead to a full point after def­e­ating Prajesh R in the seventh round of the ongoing National Under-11 Open chess championship on Friday.  

Playing the white side of Queen Pawn opening, Ram secured the full point in just 35 moves and took his point tally to seven from as many rounds. Neelash Saha of West Bengal and Bhavik Bharambe of Maharashtra are at the second spot of the point table with six points after beating Iniyan P of Tamil Nadu and Sankarsha Shelke of Maharashtra in the seventh round encounter.    

The girl’s section however was wide open after seven rounds with five players sharing the lead with six points. Overnight sole leader Lakshmi of Tamil Nadu signed the peace treaty with Anwesha Mishra of Odisha after 48 moves to be at the top while top seed and World under-10 girls champion Priyanka Nutakki joined her after beating team-mate Bommini Mounika Akshaya in the seventh round battle.  

Important results:

Open (Round VII): Ram Aravind LN (7) bt Prajesh R (5.5); Neelash Saha (6) bt Iniyan P (5); Bhavik Bharambe (6) bt Sankarsha Shelke (5); Subhasis Barik (5.5) drew with Aditya Basu (5.5); Aronyak Ghosh (5.5) drew with Koustav Chatterjee (5.5); Saurabh Anand (5.5) bt Erigaisi Arjun (4.5); Samal Ansuman (5.5) bt Pranab Kumar Patra (4.4); Aansh Gupta (5.5) bt Tarun V Kanth (4.5); Rudraksh Parida (5.5) bt Ayush Pattanaik (4.5); Praggnanandhaa R (5.5) bt Dipanjan Chowdhury (4.5); Sadhu S Adithya (5.5) bt Akshit Kumar J (4.5); Rahul Srivastav (5.5) bt Upendra R (4.5); Ritam Nag (5) bt Aryan Sonowal (4.5); Barath M (5) bt Ambarish Sharma (4); Nihal Sarin (5) bt Alan Diviya Raj (4).
Girls (Round VII): Anwesha Mishr (5.5) drew with Lakshmi C (6); Bommini Mounika Akshaya (5) lt to Priyanka Nutakki (6); Vantika Agrawal (6) bt Salonika Saina (5); Samriddhaa Ghosh (6) bt Krystal Fernandes (5); Divya Deshmukh (6) bt Swera Ana Braganca (4.5); Riddhi Zantye (4.5) drew with Tejasvi M (5); Palkin Kaur (5) bt Pracheta Agarwal (4); Adyasa Mahapatra (4.5) drew with Sudipa Halder (4.5); Shyashree Sarkar (5) bt Tanishka Kotia (4); Anannya Menkudle (5) bt Aashna Makhij (4); Arushi Kotwal (4.5) drew with Kalyani B (4.5); Jishitha D (5) bt Lasya Mayuka N (4); Rutvi Shah (5) bt Srimathi R (4); Nityata Jain (4.5) bt Shruti Kakari (4); Garima Gaurav (4.5) bt Jessica (3.5).