IM B Adhiban leads the tally with 6.5 points at the end of 8th round of the 47th Premier National Chess Championship 09 sponsored and organized by Venus Chess Academy and hosted by Goregaon Sports Club. He is closely followed by IM Sriram Jha with 6 points, who joins the elite band of 20 grandmasters in India.
The top board game between the joint leader IM Sriram Jha (ELO 2497) of Delhi and GM Neelotpal Das (ELO 2440) of PSPB started with Slav defense and the position was equal. There was a repetition of position on 33, 35, 37 moves but none of them claimed the same. The game ended in a draw with a different position repeating three times on 68th move and both agreed for a draw. With this half point Sriram has completed his third and final GM norm.
The game between GM Tejas Bakre (ELO 2470) of Indian Airlines and IM B Adhiban ( ELO 2486), former world Under 16 champion from Tamil Nadu and now playing for PSPB started in English opening. Adhiban exchanged his knight and bishop for rook and 2 pawns on the 13th move, but Tejas had to give his bishop back for 2 pawns after ten more moves. In the end game, Adhiban got an extra pawn and after exchanging the rooks he won the game comfortably in 62 moves to achieve a nine game GM norm.
GM Gopal G N (ELO 2593) started his game with world under 16 champion IM S P Sethuraman (ELO 2447) with Modern Benoni. Both the players settled for a draw with regular exchange of pieces in 2 bishop vs bishop and knight endgame.
Swapnil Dhopade of Maharashtra drew the game with GM S Kidambi which started in Slav defense to complete his IM norm requirements.
The game between GM R R laxman and IM Vidit Gujrathi ended in a draw after a fierce battle on the board. The game started with Queens Gambit accepted and Vidit got a slight advantage on 21st move but not able to capitalize on it. In the endgame although Laxman was having an extra pawn, he could not do much but to agree for a draw.
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