Commonwealth Chess Championship | Abhijeet Gupta draws with Lalit Babu, maintains slim lead

Gupta had come up with a 30-move deadlock as he took up his tally to a good six points but he won’t have any respite whatsoever. Fourth seed Lalit is sitting hot on his heels at 5.5 points and he has been followed by consistent players like second seed S. L. Narayanan, third seed Aravindh Chithambaram, fifth seed Deepan Chakkravarthy, sixth seed Debashis Das, and 10th seed Swapnil Dhopade.

There has been just half a point separating the top six seeds in the tournament with the remaining two- eighth and ninth round- expected to be intense. 

Narayanan was seen in offensive mode on Friday as he came up with a fierce attack with his queen and knight to swipe aside young and seventh-seeded GM Arjun Ergaisi. Bhakti Kulkarni, playing with white, also put up a decent shot against Aravindh but eventually succumbed in 45 moves. 

R. Vaishali also saw a similar round as she went down against Deepan, who eventually was the winner after 45 moves. Das, on the other hand, ended Suyog Wagh’s streak in 62 moves as he saw a king-side pawn-march. Dhopade had a steep battle with Krishna before the latter was ousted in 72 moves.

Seventh round results

Abhijeet Gupta (6) drew with M. R. Lalit Babu (5);

S. L. Narayanan (5.5) bt Arjun Erigaisi (5);

Bhakti Kulkarni (4.5) lost to Aravindh Chithambaram (5.5);

R. Vaishali (4.5) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (5.5);

Swapnil Dhopade (5.5) bt P. Saravanan Krishnan (4.5);

P. Iniyan (5) bt K. Ratnakaran (4);

Swayams Mishra (4.5) drew with Niranjan Navalgund (4.5);

R. R. Laxman (4.5) drew with C. R. G. Krishna (4.5);

P. Karthikeyan (5) bt Rahul Sangma (4); S. Nitin (4.5) drew with Divya Deshmukh (4.5);

Ajay Karthikeyan (4) lost to Tania Sachdev (5);

P. Shyaamnikhil (4) drew with Shantanu Bhambure (4.5).