Stany beats Kanna to stay in title hunt

 State champion Stany, who now has seven points, is in joint first place with Ramnathan Balasubramaniam of ICF, Mehar Chinna Reddy, youngster of Andra Pardesh. While top seed C Praveen Kumar, former state champion Arvinda Shastry, Malleswara Rao of Andhra Pradesh and Phoobalan P of ICF are in the second spot with 6.5 points each.

On the third board, Tamil Nadu state junior champ Navin Kanna played with an unorthodox opening against Stany. On the 10th move Stany sacrificed a pawn to gain space advantage but the position remained largely unclear for a few more moves.

However, in the middle game, Navin misjudged the position and made an inferior Knight move which gave Stany slight advantage. The game ended in the 57th move.
Important results (Round VIII): Phoobalan P (ICF, 6.5) lt to Ramnathan Balasubramaniam (ICF, 7); Praveen Kumar C (TN, 6. 5) drew with Arvind Shastry (6.5); Navin Kanna T U (TN, 6) lt to Stany G A (Kar, 7); Mehar Chinna Reddy C H (AP, 7) bt Srinivasa Rao M (AP, 5.5); Shripad K V (5.5) lt to Rao J Malleswara (AP. 6.5); Shreyans K Shah (Mah, 6.5) bt Karthik H S (5.5); Yashas D (6.5) drew Navalgund Niranjan (6); Balasubramanian A (TN, 5) lt to Sanjay N (6); Barath L (AP, 5) lt to Anilkumar O T (Ker, 6); Linda Rangarajan (TN, 6) bt Subramanian T V (TN, 5); Manasa K (6) bt Darshan V P S (5); Arjun T K S (TN, 5.5) drew Shruthi K (5.5); Jitendria Vels (TN, 6) bt Mugil Jayavel (TN, 5); Sekar B (TN, 5.5) drew Karthikeyan Murali (TN, 5.5).

Sydney Lewis (4.5) lt to Vijendra Y G (5.5); Arjun Bharat (5.5) bt Manjunath J (4.5); Satvik M (4.5) lt to Konde Gaurav AP, 5.5); Raju M (5.5) bt Augustin A (4.5); Yogesh Gautam (5.5) bt Gavi Siddayya (4.5); Shreeshan S (5.5) drew Prachura P P (5).