National Chess Championship: Surya Sekhar widens lead, 11-year-old Madhvendra stuns GM Vignesh with a draw

Five players are following Surya Sekhar on six points -- defending champion S.P. Sethuraman, Diptayan Ghosh, Karthik Venkataraman, Aronyak Ghosh and Himal Gusain.

With four rounds remaining, Surya Sekhar Ganduly is on seven points, increasing his lead to one point on Friday. | Photo Credit: Biswaranjan Rout/The Hindu

Winning seven games on the trot in a chess tournament as strong as the National Championship is not easy. But, Surya Sekhar Ganguly is in that kind of form.

With four rounds remaining, he is on seven points, increasing his lead to one point on Friday.

The top seed from Kolkata may have come down quite a bit from his peak rating of 2676 in 2016 – it now stands at 2583 -- but he is proving to be too good for his rivals at the RPS International School.

His latest victim was city-mate Sayantan Das.

Five players are following Surya Sekhar on six points -- defending champion S.P. Sethuraman, Diptayan Ghosh, Karthik Venkataraman, Aronyak Ghosh and Himal Gusain.

On the top board, playing from the black side of Ruy Lopez opening, he got a superior position early on and reached an advantageous knight-and-pawn ending.

His passed pawn on the queen-side helped him win in 64 moves.

On the second board, Deep Sengupta and Aronyak played out a 73-move draw from English Opening, while on the third, Sethuraman needed only 32 moves to beat C.R.G. Krishna in a Queen’s Gambit Declined game.

The day also saw 11-year-old Madhvendra Sharma holding N.R. Vignesh, a Grandmaster rated 506 Elo points above him.

Important results (seventh round):

Sayantan Das (RSPB) 5.5 lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB) 7; Deep Sengupta (PSPB) 5.5 drew with Aronyak Ghosh (RSPB) 6; S.P. Sethuraman (PSPB) 6 bt C.R.G. Krishna (RSPB) 5; Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) 6 bt S. Nitin (RSPB) 5; Neelash Saha (RSPB) 5 lost to Karthik Venkataraman (AP) 6; M.R. Venkatesh (PSPB) 5 lost to Himal Gusain (RSPB) 6; M.R. Lalith Babu (AP) 5.5 drew with Swapnil Dhopade (Mah) 5.5; Sriram Jha (LIC) 5.5 drew with Sankalp Gupta (Mah) 5.5; Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) 5.5 bt Dinesh K. Sharma (LIC) 4.5; P. Iniyan (TN) 5 drew with Vignesh Adwaith Vemula (TS) 5; Mitrabha Guha (RSPB) 5.5 bt Shubhi Gupta (UP) 4.5; N.R. Vignesh (RSPB) 5 drew with Madhvendra Sharma (MP) 5; Mukund Agarwal (Guj) 4.5 lost to N.R. Visakh (RSPB) 5.5; J. Deepan Chakravarthy (RSPB) 5 drew with Samyak Dharewa (Ben).