Top seed R Pragyanananda moved right into a joint lead with 5 others after his third successive win within the open class of the Asian Continental Chess Championship.
The 17-year-old Chennai participant beat compatriot Pranav Anand in 44 strikes to place fellow youngsters Leon Luke Mendonka, Kaustav Chatterjee, Karthikeyan Murali, Harsh Bharatkoti and Turkmenistan’s Maksat Atabayev within the prime spot with 3.5 factors after the fourth spherical.
Mendonka, who was in the one lead after the third spherical, settled for a draw with fellow Indian SL Narayanan in 49 strikes. Chatterjee registered a formidable win over eighth seed Rinat Zumabayev (Kazakhstan). Karthikeyan, alternatively, gained towards Indian Aditya Mittal, whereas GM Harsh Bharatkoti defeated Sandipan Chanda in an all-India competitors.
Atabayev, who began out because the thirty second seed, shared the honour with Indian GM M Shyam Sundar in a 31-move sport and took his tally to three.5 factors. A gaggle of 11 gamers together with veteran Indian GM B Adhiban, SP Sethuraman, former nationwide champion Arvind Chitambaram and SL Narayanan are on three factors.
In the ladies’s occasion, younger Indian girls’s Grandmaster Priyanka Nuttaki moved prime seed Tania Sachdev into the joint lead together with compatriots Soumya Swaminathan, PV Nandidha and Thi Kim Phung Wo (Vietnam). Little-known Saina Salonika, who defeated second seed Devdemberel Nomin-Erdin of Mongolia within the third spherical, continued her good type by defeating veteran Bhakti Kulkarni within the fourth spherical on Saturday.
Women’s International Master Rakshita Ravi drew towards Nilufar Yakubaeva (Uzbekistan) with Salonika taking her tally to a few factors.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
