By IANS
New Delhi : Top seed Vidit Santosh Gujarathi moved closer to defending his title at the Parsvnath National Under-13 Chess Championship, as he beat overnight joint leader Gahan.M.G of Karntaka in a top table eighth clash here Thursday.
Playing with black and opting to play the Sicilian Defence, Vidit defeated his opponent in 47 moves to take the sole lead (7.5 points).
P. Lokesh of Tamil Nadu and Ankit Rajpara of Gujarat are just half a point adrift of Vidit.
Rajpara overcame Vishwanath Prasad of Andhra Pradesh without much of a struggle. His game at the second board lasted just 24 moves. On the other hand, Lokesh defeated Sayantan Das of West Bengal in a long drawn out battle lasting 87 moves.
A pack of four players, consisting of Prasanna Rao and Pranav Shetty of Maharashtra, Girish Koushik of Karnataka and Gahan each having 6.5 points, are close at the heels of the leaders.
The eighth round proved to be another difficult outing for the local Delhi lads, as Commonwealth Gold medallist Vaibhav Suri had to settle for a draw with Fenil Shah of Gujarat, while Prince Bajaj could not shake off his poor form as he slumped to a defeat at the hands of Pranav.
In an interesting turn of events, visually challenged Darpan Inani of Gujarat who has performed impressively throughout the tournament, defeated FIDE-rated Ittayara Paul Vadassery of Kerala. Darpan has now five points out of the possible eight.
Round VII (important results): Gahan M G (6.5) lost to Vidit Santosh Gujarathi (7.5) of Mahrashtra, Vishwanth Prasad (6) of Andhra Pradesh lost to Ankit R Rajpara of Gujarat, Lokesh P (7) of Tamil Nadu beat Das Sayantan (6) of West Bengal, Prasanna Rao (6.5) of Maharshtra beat Sahoo Utkal Ranjan (5.5) of Orissa, Prince Bajaj (5.5) of Delhi lost to Pranav Shetty (6.5) of Maharshtra, Yogesh Gautam (5.5) lost to Girish A Koushik (6.5) of Karnataka, Eswar R (5) of Andhra Pradesh lost to Narayanan Srinath (6) of Tamil Nadu, Vaibhav Suri ( 5.5) of Delhi drew with Fenil Shah (5.5) of Gujarat, Hari Hara Sudhan (5.5) drew with Anurag Mhamal (5.5) of Goa, Aubhropratim Manna (6) beat Abhiladh Reddy (5) of Andhra Pradesh.