Grandmaster Swapnill S Dhopade of Maharashtra emerged as the sole leader with 7.5 points after the eighth and penultimate round of the IIFL Wealth Mumbai International Open Chess Tournament 2016, being played at Mount Litera School International, Bandra (East), Mumbai, here, on Thursday.
Sadhwani Raunak
On the top board, Swapnil beat Gusain Himal, in a quiet Caro Kann game. Swapping pieces in regular intervals, Swapnil moved into a double rook and bishop ending. The broken pawn structure of Gusain, offered clear openings for attack and Swapnil capitalized on the situation by pushing forward to force the win and pick up the full point.
Swapnil is closely followed by International Master Stany G.A. of Karnataka with 7 points in second position and Gusain Himal, 6.5 points, occupies the third place. Top seed and GM-elect Shardul Gagare of Maharashtra with 6 points shares the fourth position with five other players.
Sankarsha Shelke
The battles now move to the final round on Friday and is bound to remain intense in this mega Swiss tournament that has a total prize money of Rs 7.5 lakhs with the Champion becoming richer by Rs 1.5 lakhs.
Meanwhile, four players all with 6 points each share the top spot at the end of the seventh round. Mohammad Fahad Rahman (Ban), Sadhwani Raunak, Aditya Mittal and Sankarsha Shelke (all India) are in contention for winning the top honours.
Sankassha did well to share honours with top seed Mohammad Fahad Rahman of Bangladesh, Sadhwani Raunak and Aditya Mittal also played out a draw.
Results (Round 8) – IIFL Wealth Mumbai International Open: Gusain Himal (6.5) lost to Swapnil S Dhopade (7.5), Stany G A (7) bt Muthaiah A L (5.5), Bharambe Bhavik C (6) drew with Ravi Teja S (6), Gagare Shardul (6) bt Praggnanandhaa R (5), Bartakke Amardeep S (6) bt Nitin S (5), Himanshu Sharma (6) bt Arjun Adappa (5), Chakravarthi Reddy M (5.5) drew with Sharma Dinesh K (5.5),k Gukesh D (5) lost to Krishna Teja N (6), Abhishek Das (5.5) drew with Matta Vinay Kumar (5.5), Audi Ameya (5) drew with Parnali S Dharia (5.5)
Results (Round 7) – IIFL Wealth Mumbai Junior (Indians unless specified): Sankarsha Shelke (6) drew with Mohammad Fahad Rahman (Ban, 6), Sadhwani Raunak (6) drew with Aditya Mittal (6), Gukesh D (5.5) drew with Aryan Ranjan (5.5), Dhanush Ragav (5.5) drew with Om Kharola (5.5), Tripathi Adarsh (5.5) drew with Aryan Polakhare (5.5), Saha Shuban (5.5) bt Raahil Mullick (4.5), Ghelani Dhariya (4.5) lost to Adane Narayani (5.5), Rohnit G Amin (4.5) lost to Sankalp Gupta (5), Kriti Mayur Patel (4) lost to Yutesh P (5)