TN’s Sailesh maintains sole lead

Nagpur: Tamil Nadu’s second seed Sailesh R remained unbeaten to maintain sole lead in the 19th GH Raisoni Chess Festival on Wednesday.

Despite being held to a draw by unseeded Shaon Chowdhury in the seventh round, the 21-year-old Sailesh remained positive and prevailed over Bihar’s Kishan Kumar in the eighth round to regain sole lead with 7.5 points. Rupam Mukherjee of West Bengal, who took joint lead after the seventh round, was held to a draw by Nagpur’s Vishwaditya Awasthi to share the joint second position, collecting seven points.

In an all-Nagpur contest, Prerak Darvekar defeated Jay Sawalakhe on the fourth board to jump to the joint second position with Mukherjee and Chowdhury. Young Nagpur masters Awasthi and Swaraj Mishra share the third position, collecting 6.5 points with three others.

RESULTS (Round 8)

Sailesh R (7.5) bt Kishan Kumar (6.5), Rupam Mukherjee (7) drew with Vishwaditya Awasthi (6.5), Abhiram Vaddi (6) lost to Shaon Chowdhury (7), Prerak Darvekar (7) bt Jay Sawalakhe (6), Rajanikant Buxy (6.5) drew with Salil Kumar (6), Pradeep Tiwari (6) drew with MK Chandrasekhar (6), Swaraj Mishra (6.5) bt Vedika Pal (5.5), Yodharth Narule (6.5) bt Dushyant Nakade (5.5), Chirag Lahoti (6) drew with Ajay Rai (6), Ameya Godbole (6) drew with Nilay Kulkarni (6).