Negi maintains sole lead

Negi maintains sole lead; Prasanna Rao stuns Jha in Parsvnath Commonwealth Chess
PTI

Second seed Indian Parimarjan Negi beat fifth seed Grandmaster Eltaj Safarli to maintain his sole lead with seven and half points in the ongoing Parsvnath Commonwealth Chess Championship here today.

Opting to play Ruy Lopez, opening from white side, Negi maneuvered his Queen and Rook tactically in the middle game to garner full point against his Azerbaijan rival in 68 moves.

Russian Grandmaster Pavel Maletin beat his Ukrainian counterpart Martyn Kravtsiv in the eighth round encounter to occupy the sole second spot with seven points while a pack of five players including Fide Master Prasanna Rao, who stunned Grandmaster Sriram Jha in the eighth round, are in third sport with six and half points.

Former world junior champion Abhijit Gupta and RR Laxman signed the peace treaty in their eighth round battle and are giving company to Prasanna Rao at joint third spot along with Russian Grandmaster Dmitry Bochrov and Grandmaster Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan.

Bochrov defeated International Master K Rathnakarn while Iuldachev had it easy against Abhishek Das.

In another surprising results in the eighth round, top seed Russain Grandmaster Alexey Dreev settled for another draw with former world junior girls champion International Master D Harika, while Tamil Nadu youngster Ramnath Bhuvanesh stunned Kazak Grandmaster Rustam Khusnutdinov.

Source: http://beta.thehindu.com