S. Ravi Teja ended the unbeaten sequence of overnight leader Grandmaster R. R. Laxman while 16-year-old C. Sai Vishwesh returned to winning ways as the two shared the lead at six points after seven rounds of the Amity National Challengers chess championship here on Wednesday.
The victorious duo enjoyed half-point lead over Laxman, Sidhant Mohapatra, S. L. Narayanan, V. A. V. Rajesh, Tejas Bakre and Mary Ann Gomes.
In the midst of drawn encounters on the leading boards, in addition to Rahul Singh Soram, rated 1994, holding top seed Aravindh Chithambaram, the victories of the Ravi and Sai stood out.
In a game that left the players with a queen and a few pawns each by the 38th move, Ravi clearly looked better. His queen quickly caused more damage by wiping out the rival pawns in a hurry. When Ravi had two extra pawns and appeared set to force the exchange of queens, Laxman gave up after playing his 53rd move.
Much earlier, Sai punished Mehar Chinna Reddy for an early oversight and wrapped up the game in just 16 moves. Reddy saw a forced checkmate soon after Sai’s knight ‘forked’ his king and queen. Realising that even taking Sai’s menacing knight would not help, Mehar promptly resigned.
The results:
Seventh round: S. Ravi Teja (6) bt R. R. Laxman (5.5); Sidhant Mohapatra (5.5) drew with S. L. Narayanan (5.5); C. Sai Vishwesh (6) bt Mehar Chinna Reddy (5); V. A. V. Rajesh (5) drew with Shardul Gagare (5); N. Srinath (5) drew with Neeraj Kumar Mishra (5); M. Kunal (4.5) lost to Tejas Bakre (5.5); Rahul Sangma (5) drew with Sriram Jha (5); Surya Praneeth (5) drew with Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (5); Mary Ann Gomes (5.5) bt G. Akash (4.5); Dinesh Kumar Sharma (5) drew with Abhishek Kelkar (5); Arjun Kalyan (5) drew with Somak Palit (5); Chandra Prasad (5) drew with B. Harsha (5); Senthil Maran (4) lost to Vishnu Prasanna (5); Abhijit Kunte (5) bt Rahul Shetty (4); Himal Gusain (5) bt B. T. Murali Krishnan (4).
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