60th National Chess Championships: Former winners struggle as only eight of them share lead

The 60th National Chess Championships witnessed several interesting results as young and lesser-rated players stunned former Champions on Saturday at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Pune.

After four rounds, only eight former champions maintained the lead. The top seed Abhijeet Gupta was the first to suffer a loss on Friday as Chhattisgarh's Dhananjay overcame the challenge from the former champion.

Notably, in the last National Chess Championship, Abhijeet Gupta lost the title to Karthik Venkataraman after picking up a draw against Sayantan in a five-hour-long battle.

Dhananjay continued his excellent run on Saturday as well, as he drew with the Grandmaster MR Venkatesh. The second-seed Abhimanyu Puranik won a tough challenge against Arghyadip Das. The 23-year-old Grandmaster needed 56 moves to make it to the next round.

P Sethuraman moved past his Tamil Nadu statemate Srihari in just 33 moves. The former Asian Champion was one of the players to have an easy run in the Championships on Saturday.

The veteran Surya Sekhar Ganguly escaped with a draw against S Nitin. The Arjuna Awardee struggled against the Railway's star but managed to hold on for a draw.

C Praveen Kumar defeated his statemate Akash in 55 moves. Despite being in control for most part of the game, Akash lost his grip in the endgame. This was enough for his senior colleague to turn things around.

Devaki Prasad was stunned by Shriraj Bhosale in the 4th round. Shriraj opted to exchange his queen for two rooks, which proved a winning move against his senior opponent.

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Ranks after round four in the 60th National Chess Championships

After four rounds in the 60th National Chess Championships, only eight players have grabbed perfect scores, four points, and 20 players have managed to have 3.5 points.

Sethuraman, Iniyan, and Vignesh are at the top of the 60th National Chess Championship list after gathering 11 points in the TB3/Tie Break 3. Sethuraman has a rating of 2591, Tamil Nadu's Iniyan has 2502, and RSPB's Vignesh has 2501.

Grandmaster Abhimanyu Puranik is in 4th position after 1050 points in TB3. Sayantan Das is in 5th place with a rating of 2611.