Top seed International Master, Vikramaditya Kulkarni of Western Railway has taken the sole lead with a tally of 8 points at the end of in a ninth round of the Rs.1.50 lakhs prize-money SBI Life All-Maharashtra FIDE Rating Chess Tournament, which commenced at the Don Bosco High School, Borivali on Sunday.
A group of 5-players, Ketan Boricha, Chirag Satkar, Rajesh Gupta, Pratik Shenvi and 12-year old Vedant Panesar are following the leader with a score of 7.5 each. They are followed by a group of 10-players who are placed in joint 3rd place with a score of 7 points, which includes second seed FM Avinash Awate and fourth seed Amardeep Bartakke.
The most notable upset of the day was the loss of 15th seeded, Nikhil Kadam to 10-year old CM Raahil Mullick, a former Asian Schools champion.
Key results of Round-9:
Kulkarni Vikramaditya (8) drew with Gupta
Rajesh R.S. (7.5), Shubham Kumthekar (7) drew with Satkar Chirag (7.5), Khushi Khandelwal (6.5) lost to Boricha Ketan (7.5), Gajeni Rajababu (7) drew with Jain Kashish Kumthekar (7), Shardul Santosh Wakade (6.5) lost to Panesar Vedant (7.5), Shenvi Pratik (7.5) bt Golvankar Dilip K (6.5), Awate Avinsh (7) bt Chavan Pradeep (6), Bartakke Amardeep (7) bt Dere Pushkar (6), Kapadi Yash (6) lost to Patil Ketan (7), Raees Ahmed A.Q. (7) bt Soham Palkar (6).