Senior National Chess: Five players in joint lead

KANPUR: Five players, including Arjun Erigaisi and D Gukesh, are in the lead after the fifth round of the 58th Senior National Chess Championship on Sunday.
Apart from Erigaisi and Gukesh, Abhijeet Gupta, MR Lalith Babu and Kaustav Chatterjee have 4.5 points after five rounds and they are followed in second place by a bunch of players, including top-seed B Adhiban, on four points.
In the fifth round matches, Erigaisi and Gukesh settled for a draw while Lalith Babu beat Aryan Chopra and Abhijeet Gupta defeated Aditya Mittal.
Chatterjee, who had held Adhiban to a draw in the third round, put it across Karthikeyan Murali to join the four others at the top.
Important results: 5th round: D Gukesh drew with Arjun Erigaisi, M R Lalith Babu beat Aryan Chopra, Adhiban drew Harsha Bharathakoti, Abhijeet Gupta beat Aditya Mittal, Mitraba Guha drew with Aronyak Ghosh, Kaustav Chatterjee beat Karthikeyan Murali, Aravindh Chithambaram beat S Harshad, M Siddhanth drew with Abhimanyu Puranik.