Pune: Grandmaster SP Sethuraman of PSPB maintained his overnight lead with 6.5 points at 60th National Chess Championships 2023 being organized by the Maharashtra Chess Association and played at the Boxing Hall of the Balewadi Sports Complex here.
The seventh round on Tuesday was a day of draws as There were as many as 5 draws on the top 10 boards. Out of the top 5 boards, there were 3 draws.
Tournament leader, GM SP Sethuraman, playing on the top board, played a well fought out draw against 2nd ranked GM Abhimanyu Puranik. The game was very complicated and both players played safe and accepted a draw. Sethuraman had a tournament h score of 6.5/7.
GM Mitraba Guha, playing on board 2 against the in-form IM Aronyak Ghosh played out a quick draw due to 3-fold repetition, and finished his game in under 30 minutes.
Top seed GM Abhijeet Gupta, playing on board 3, lost against IM Neelash Saha. Neelash, playing with the black pieces, capitalized on Gupta’s blunder, and converted the game smoothly in the end.
IM Anuj Shrivatri, playing against GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly on board 4, played a solid game with the white pieces, and held the seasoned GM to a draw.
Results (Seventh Round):
Sethuraman, SP (6.5) (PSPB) drew with Abhimanyu Puranik (6) (AAI).
Mitrabha Guha (6) (Ben) drew with Aronyak Ghosh (6) (RSPB).
Abhijeet Gupta (5) (PSPB) lost to Neelash Saha (6) (RSPB).
Anuj Shrivatri (5.5) (MP) drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (5.5) (PSPB).
Diptayan Ghosh(5) (WB) vs Arghyadip Das (5) (RSPB).
Sidhant Mohapatra (5) (RSPB) lost to Visakh NR (6) (RSPB).
Iniyan P (5) (6) (TN) bt Venkatesh, MR (5) (PSPB).
Mehar Chinna Reddy CH (5) (RSPB)drew with Vignesh NR (5) (RSPB).
Bhoopnath (5pts) (Bih) lost to Deep Sengupta (6pts) (PSPB).
Shyaamnikhil P (5.5) (RSPB)drew with Srihari, LR (5.5) (TN).
Deepan Chakkravarthy J (5.5) (RSPB) drew with Apoorv Kamble (5.5) (KAR).
Akash G (5.5) (TN) bt Kolla, Bhaavan (5) (AP).
John Veny Akkarakaran (4.5) (Ker) lost to Vishnu Prasanna V (5.5) (TN).
Krishna, CRG (5.5) (RSPB) bt Sharsha, Backer (4.5) (Ker).
Kaivalya Nagare (4.5) (Mah) lost to Soham Kamotra (5.5) (J&K).
Sriram Jha (5.5) (LIC) bt Ambarish Sharma (4.5) (Ben).
Vignesh Vemula (5.5) (Tel) bt Suyog Wagh (4.5) (Mah).
Rajesh Nayak (5.5) (ODI)bt Harshit Pawar (4.5) (Del).
Vedant Garg (5.5) (Chd) bt Shreyans Shah (4.5) (MAH).
