5 Grand Masters, 1 IM leading jointly at 7 points each after 9 rounds

Chess players busy in making moves during Senior National Chess Championship at Jammu on Saturday. -Excelsior/Rakesh
Chess players busy in making moves during Senior National Chess Championship at Jammu on Saturday. -Excelsior/Rakesh

Senior National Chess Championship
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 15: Five Grand Masters Vaibhav Suri, Aravindh Chithamabaram, Deep Sengupta, Anurag Mhamal and Bakre Tejas and International Master (IM) Stany are in the lead with 7.0 points each at the end of 9th round during the ongoing Senior National Chess Championship, being played at Gurjar Desh Charitable Trust, here.
On the seventh spot, 7 players namely GM Deepan Chakraborty, GM Praveen Thipsay, GM Swapnil Dhopade, GM Neelotpal Das, Harshavardhan, IM Nitin S and IM Krishna CRG are in with 6.5 point each.
GM Sengupta Deep of PSPB drew with GM Vaibhav Suri of PSPB, GM Aravindh Chithambaram of Tamil Nadu drew with IM Stany of AAI, GM Anurag Mhamal of Goa beat GM Gupta Abhijeet of PSPB, IM Nitin of RSPB drew with GM Deepan Chakkravarthy of RSPB, GM Bakre Tejas of Air India beat GM Vishnu Prasanna of Tamil Nadu, GM Karthik Venkataraman of Telangana drew with GM Thipsay Praveen of Maharashtra, GM Swapnil S Dhopade of RSPB beat IM Viani Antonio Dcunha of Karnataka, G B Harshavardhan of Tamil Nadu beat IM Karthikeyan of RSPB, IM Krishna of RSPB beat Rahul of Tamil Nadu, Sammed Jayakumar Shete of Maharashtra drew with GM Sundararajan Kidambi of Tamil Nadu, IM Akash of Tamil Nadu drew with FM Navalgund Niranjan of Karnataka, GM Neelotpal Das of PSPB beat IM Rathnakaran of RSPB, GM Karthikeyan Murali of PSPB beat Ritviz Parab of Goa, GM Chanda Sandipan of West Bengal beat FM NItish Belurkar of Goa, IM Saravana Krishnan of Tamil Nadu drew with GM Venkatesh of PSPB, IM Vignesh of Tamil Nadu beat IM Navin Kanna of DASCB, Srijit Paul of West Bengal beat IM Swayams Mishra of Air India, Saurabh Anand of Bihar lost to IM Shyaam Nikhil of RSPB, FM Wagh Suyog of Maharashtra lost to GM Laxman of RSPB and IM Rajesh of Tamil Nadu beat Gurpreeth Singh Maras of DASCB.
J&K players Soham Kamotra and Sumit Grover are at 4.5 each.
Still 4 more rounds are to be played in this event.
Around 160 players including 19 Grand Masters and 20 International Masters and some Arjuna Awardee players from 27 States and 8 special units—Air India, Railways, Defence, Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, LIC, etc. are participating in this event. Total 50 titled players are also playing in this historical and strongest ever national of India till date.
All J&K Chess Association under the aegis of All India Chess Federation is organizing this event. This is also a Asian Zonal 3.7 event as India is a separate zone in Asia. Top 10 board games were shown live on internet by expert Ganesh Babu of Tamil Nadu.
Total prizes of Rs 20 lakhs will be distributed among top 10 players and first prize being Rs 5 lakh. Total 13 rounds will be played. Selected players will lead the Asian Zone 3.7 in world events. All States have been allowed to field 4 entries while being host, J&K has been allowed to field 8 players.
Soham Kamotra of J&K is at 4.5 points after 7 rounds, while Sumit Grover and Ajit Singh are at 4 points in this high voltage event. Other participants from J&K are Ajit Singh, Khalid Amin, SP Sharma, Ashutosh Jamwal, Surinder and Ankush Bhardwaj.
The event is played under Fide laws of chess under Swiss System. International Arbiter Dharmendra Kumar is the Chief Arbiter of this event who is supported by seven Deputy Arbiters.
Dr Daud Iqbal Baba, Director, Directorate of Sports and Physical Education, Jammu University inaugurated the round 8 and wished good luck to the players.
The matches are conducted under the overall supervision of AJKCA President Atul Kumar Gupta. All J&K Chess Association members present in today matches include AR Wani, Ashiq Ahmad Kolu, Baldev Raj, Taranvir Singh, Kuljeet Jamwal, Farooq Ahmad, Mohammad Shafi, Khalid Amin, Raj Kumar, Vikas Nanda, Rakesh Gupta and Mohit Bharti.

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