Close finish ahead in Gurgaon chess

Gurgaon, Jan 7 (IANS) With two rounds remaining, the Gurgaon International Grandmasters Chess Tournament is heading for a close finish at the end of Round-8 matches.

Seven players, including top seed Kravtsiv Martyn of Ukraine and Indian hope Sahaj Grover, lead the points table at 6.5 points each.

In the eighth round most of the top board battles ended without decisive results. Martyn signed a peace treaty with Grandmaster Tornike Sanikidze of Georgia while Russian Grandmaster Evdokimov Alexander and Grover settled for half point against International Master Prasanna Rao and second seed Oliver Barbosa of the Philipppines, respectively.

These results helped International Masters Vikramaditya Kulkarni and Swayams Mishra to catch up with overnight leaders as they outwitted Grandmaster S. Kidambi and International Master Shivananda B.S. A pack of 15 including Barbosa are now sharing the joint second spot with six points.

The final round will start Wednesday.

Important Round 8 results: Kravtsiv Maryn (UKR) (6.5) drew with Tornike Sanikidze (GEO) (6.5); Alexander Evdokimov (RUS) (6.5) drew with Prasanna Rao (6.5); Oliver Barbosa (PHI) (6) drew with Sahaj Grover (6.5); John Paul Gomez (PHI) (6) drew with Kunal M. (6); Karthikeyan P. (6) drew with Eldar Gasanov (UKR) (6): Shivananda B.S. (5.5) lost to Swayams Mishra (6.5); Shyam Nikil (6) drew with Raset Ziatdinov (USA) (6); S. Kidambi (5.5) lost to Vikramaditya Kulkarni (6.5); Merab Gagunashvili (GEO) (5.5) drew with Karthik V. (6.5); Akash P.C. Iyer (5.5) drew with Marat Dzhumaev (UZB) (6); Valeriy Neverov (UKR) (5) lost to Tillyaev Ulugbek (UZB) (6); Arun Prasad (5.5) drew with Puneet Jaiswal (5.5); N. Srinath (6) beat Aniruddha Deshpande (5); Surendran N. (5.5) drew with Rajesh V.A.V. (5.5); S. Satyapragyan (5.5) drew with Lakshmi Narayanan M.V. (5.5); Ravi Teja S. (6) beat Sattarov Bobir (UZB) (5); Sameer Kathmale (6) beat Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva (UZB) (5); Nitin S. (6) beat Nishant Malhotra (5); Deepthamsh Reddy M. (6) beat Visakh N.R. (5); Akmal Faizulaev (6) beat Kumar Gaurav (5).