KOLKATA: Ajay Karthikeyan of Tamil Nadu brightened his title prospects as he extended his lead to the final round of the 44th National sub-junior (under-15) Open chess tournament at Kalyani, Nadia district.
Ajay maintained his overnight lead of half-a-point after playing out a draw against Utsab Chatterjee of Bengal on the top board on Tuesday to keep his tally to 8.5 points after 10 rounds.
The action in the second board between Sankalp Gupta of Maharashtra and Bengal’s Aronyak Ghosh also saw a stalemate to keep the previous round’s order intact.
The next two boards saw results, allowing its winners Koustav Chatterjee of Bengal and L. Srihari of Puducherry to join a group of five players in the second spot with eight points each.
Divya Deshmukh of Maharashtra claimed the girls’ title after ensuring an unassailable lead with a round to spare in the 35th National sub-junior (under-15) girls’ tournament, being held concurrently.
Divya defeated Bengal’s Bristy Mukherjee in the 10th round to tally nine points and ensured the title in the process.
Eight players remained tied on 7.5 points each in the second spot giving Divya all the reason to celebrate her title before the final round.
Important results:
Utsab Chatterjee (Ben) 8 drew with Ajay Karthikeyan (TN) 8.5; Sankalp Gupta (Mah) 8 drew with Aronyak Ghosh (Ben) 8; Soham Kamotra (J&K) 7 lost to Koustav Chatterjee (Ben) 8; L. Srihari (Pud) 8 bt Shuban Saha (Ben) 7; Jayachandra Srinivas Vellanki 7.5 drew with Leon Luken Mendonca (Goa) 7; Kushagra Mohan (Tel) 7.5 bt P. Jagadish (Kar) 6.5; Esshan Wadhawan (Del) 7 drew with B. Harshavardhan (TN) 7; Ayush Sharma (MP) 7 drew with Arpan Das Jr. (Ben) 7.