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Akshayraj stuns Poobesh

By Our Special Correspondent

NAGPUR OCT. 21. Even as the National under-18 champion Poobesh Anand, last edition's runner-up Preetham Sharma and ninth-seeded Ram S. Krishnan suffered surprise defeats, six of the seven overnight leaders were involved in draws in the fourth round of the National junior chess championship here on Monday.

After Sunday's storm, when most seeded players had a tough time, there was a noticeable lull today. With the front-runners treading cautiously, five more players joined the leaders' group on Monday posting decisive verdicts.

In all, 11 players share the lead with 3.5 points. They are, M.R. Venkatesh, Prathamesh Mokal, Arghyadip Das, Abhijeet Gupta, P. Phoobalan, R. Siddharth, S. Arun Prasad, Bharat Gupta, Akshayraj Kore, Pratik Shriwas and Gurpreet Singh Maras.

Much before the top-board battle between Siddharth and Venkatesh ended in a 51-move deadlock, Arghyadip Das and Sunday's hero Bharat Gupta agreed to an 18-move draw in French Defence. Bharat, the conqueror of top-seeded P. Magesh Chandran in the third round, did not allow Das any liberties. The third board battle between Arun Prasad and Phoobalan also ended without a decisive verdict after 53 moves.

Akshat Khamparia was the only overnight leader to lose as fourth-seeded Prathamesh Mokal cracked him in just 28 moves. Similarly, Abhijeet Gupta, seeded eight, prevailed over Swaraj Palit to be among the leaders.

The big result of day remained the defeat of Poobesh, who played listlessly to lose in just 25 moves to National sub-junior runner-up Akshayraj Kore on the fifth board.

The other two upsets were triggered off by local boys. Gurpreet Singh Maras stunned sixth-seeded Preetham Sharma in 50 moves of Sicilian Defence after Pratik Shriwas had scalped Ram Krishnan.

After tasting defeats on Sunday, Magesh Chandran and seventh-seeded Saptarshi Roy ensured that there were no hiccups on this day. Also getting back into the race was 16th-seeded Rohan Shandilya. Having suffered a first-round defeat, Shandilya posted his third straight victory.

The results:

Fourth round: R. Siddharth (3.5) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (3.5); Arghyadip Das (3.5) drew with Bharat Gupta (3.5); S. Arun Prasad (3.5) drew with P. Phoobalan (3.5); Akshat Khamparia (3) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (3.5); Poobesh Anand (2.5) lost to Akshayraj Kore (3.5); Gurpreet Singh (3.5) bt Preetham Sharma (2.5); Swaraj Palit (2.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (3.5); Ram Krishnan (2.5) lost to Pratik Shriwas (3.5); K. Sujeesh (3) drew with Y. Pratibha (3); P. Magesh Chandran (3) bt M. Satyajit (2); Uttam Sharma (2) lost to Saptarshi Roy (3); Ranveer Singh Bhatti (3) bt Soumya Ranjan Misra (2); Sohan Phadke (2) lost to Rohan Shandilya (3); G.N. Gopal (2.5) drew with Pranjal Phukan (2.5); Arun Srenivas (2) lost to Pradip Ghosh (3); Puneet Jaiswal (3) bt V. Haribalu (2); Arjun Tiwari (3) bt Sourav Chakraborty (2); Baisakhi Das (2.5) drew with Omkar Patwardhan (2.5); Rakesh Agarwal (3) bt Swapnil Dhopade (2); Subodh Lakhey (2) lost to H.D. Jagdish (3); Ayan Lahiri (2) lost to Aniket Pawshe (3); Soumitra Majumdar (2.5) drew with Kaustav Barat (2.5); Shival Jethi (2) lost to Nayandeep Kotangale (3); Sudhir Kumar Sinha (2.5) bt Hardik Jha (2.5); Praveen Kumar (2.5) bt Danny Gregory (1.5); Jigar Thakkar (2.5) bt M. Abhirama (1.5); B. Shivachaitanya (1.5) lost to Dushyant Das (2.5); Tariq Ummer (1.5) lost to M. Manoj (2.5); Ajay Kumar Gupta (2) drew with Kulman Preet Singh (2); M. Vinay Kumar (2.5) bt Abhay Kumar Sinha (1.5); Kamlesh Limaye (2) drew with Abhishek Das (2); Sankalp Modwal (2.5) bt Harshal Deshpande (1.5); Amarendra Vaidya (1.5) lost to D. Sai Srinivas (2); K. Pawan Kumar (1) lost to B. Adithya (2); Manjit Singh (1.5) drew with Ajeesh Antony (1.5); Anoop Jayraj (1) lost to Kapil Gupta (2); Jilesh Gandhi (1) lost to Anshuman Purankar (2); Nagesh Patil (2) bt Satchidanand Tripathi (1); Debasis Das (1.5) drew with Suman Sucharit Das (1.5); S. Shreyas (1) lost to Aniruddha Deshpande (2); S. Yashas (2) bt Shriwas Bhushan (1); H. Chandrashekhar (1) lost to Amit Tiwari (2); Imran Shikalgar (1) bt Niraj Gabhane (1); Sunny Purohit (2) bt S.K. Upadhyay (1); Abhishek Narain (1.5) drew with Pravin Ghalay (1.5); Prabhav Trivedi (1) lost to Shailesh Jaiswar (2); P. Pawan (2) bt Vishal Thakre (1); Aniket Patni (2) bt Rishi Kapoor (1); Kranti Kumar (1) lost to Amit Kumar Gupta (2); Mohit Jethi (1) lost to Pranali Patil (2); R. Chaitanya (0.5) lost to Mandar Joshi (1.5); Sheikh Mohd. Abid (0.5) lost to Shrenhik Daklia (1.5); Mithali Patil (1) bt Prashant Kharvi (0); G. Chaitanyakumar (0) lost to Shreyansh Daklia (1); Ajit Singh (0) lost to Nipun Chourasia (1); Nachiket Vanikar (0) lost to Amrish Joshi (1); B.G.P. Mohapatra (1) bye.

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