U-11 National Age Group Chess: Ram Aravind, Priyanka Nutakki Lead

New Delhi, Sept 7: With three rounds remaining, top seed and World U-10 girls’ champion Priyanka Nutakki took the sole lead with seven points, defeating local hope and second seed Vantika Agarwal in the eighth round of the National U-11 Girls Chess Championship here at the Ludlow Castle Sports Complex Saturday.

In an equal position, Vantika overlooked the clock to lose on time and handed over full points to her Andhra Pradesh rival in 40 moves.

Overnight leaders Lakshmi of Tamil Nadu and Divya Deshmukh of Maharashtra split the point to be second with six and a half points each while Anwesh Mishra of Odisha joined them by beating other overnight leader Samriddhaa Ghosh of West Bengal.

In the open section, top seed Ram Aravind of Tamil Nadu continued his winning ways and downed Neelash Saha of West Bengal to maintain a clean slate. Playing white of Kan variation in Sicilian Defence, Ram took only 21 moves to outwit his rival and is now enjoying a full point lead over his nearest rival Bhavik Bharambe of Maharashtra, who shocked second seed Saurabh Anand of Bihar.

Results:

Open Round 8: Ram Aravind L.N. of Tamil Nadu (8) beat Neelash Saha of West Bengal (6); Saurabh Anand of Bihar (5.5) lost to Bhavik Bharambe of Maharashtra (7); Sadhu S. Adithya of Tamil Nadu (6.5) beat Samal Ansuman of Odisha (5.5); Koustav Chatterjee of West Bengal (6.5) beat Prajesh R. of Tamil Nadu (5.5); Aditya Basu of West Bengal (5.5) lost to Aansh Gupta of Delhi (6.5); Rudraksh Parida of Odisha (5.5) lost to Rahul Srivatshav of Andhra Pradesh (6.5); Subhasis Barik of Odisha (5.5) lost to Praggnanandhaa R. of Tamil Nadu (6.5); Iniyan P. of Tamil Nadu (5) lost to Aronyak Ghosh of West Bengal (6.5); Sankarsha Shelke of Maharashtra (5.5) drew with Harshvardhan G.B. of Tamil Nadu (5.5); Barath M. of Goa (6) beat Aryan Abhijeet Shah of Maharashtra (5); Nihal Sarin of Kerala (6) beat Anshul Nigam of Jharkhand (5); Ritam Nag of West Bengal (6) beat Lokesh Hans of Haryana (5); Dileep Kumar R. of Tamil Nadu (5.5) drew with Manoj B. Kulkarni of Karnataka (5.5); Pranab Kumar Patra of Odisha (5) drew with Gaurav Rajesh Zagade of Maharashtra (5.5); Erigaisi Arjun of Andhra Pradesh (5.5) beat Sambit Panda of Odisha (4.5).

Girls Round 8: Priyanka Nutakki of Andhra Pradesh (7) beat Vantika Agrawal of Delhi (6); Lakshmi C. of Tamil Nadu (6.5) drew with Divya Deshmukh of Maharashtra (6.5); Samirddhaa Ghosh of West Bengal (6) lost to Anwesha Mishra of Odisha (6.5); Salonika Saina of Odisha (6) beat Shyamshree Sarkar of West Bengal (5); Tejasvi M. of Tamil Nadu (5.5) drew with Palkin Kaur of Delhi (5.5); Krystal Fernandes of Goa (6) beat Anannya Menkudle of Maharahstra (5); Rutvi Shah of Gujarat (5.5) drew with Bommini Mounika Akshaya of Andhra Pradesh (5.5); Kalyani B. of Andhra Pradesh (5.5) beat Jishitha D. of Andhra Pradesh (5); Meenal Gupta of Jammu and Kashmir (4.5) lost to Riddhi Zantye of Goa (5.5); Garima Gaurav of Bihar (4.5) lost to Adyasa Mahapatra of Odisha (5.5); Nityata Jain of Madhya Pradesh (4.5) lost to Niyati Parakh of Chhattisgarh (5.5); Swera Ana Braganca of Goa (4.5) lost to Sanskriti Goyal of Uttar Pradesh (5.5); Sudipa Halder of West Bengal (5.5) beat Arushi Kotwal of Jammu and Kashmir (4.5); Saanya Mahesh of Delhi (5) drew with Kruthika K.R. of Tamil Nadu (5); Pracheta Agarwal of Jharkhand (4) lost to K. Anvitha of Andhra Pradesh (5.5).