Pune, Jun 6 (Chess News) Top-seed Farrukh Amonatov of Tajikistan posted a 43-move win over Russian Boris Savchenko to take his tally to 7.5 points and shoot into the lead after the ninth round of the inaugural Maharashtra International Open Grandmaster chess tournament here on Monday.
In the top board clash, GM Amonatov (Elo 2622), who is unbeaten so far, got the better of fellow GM Savchenko to take sole lead.
Three players — Arjun Kalyan, Deep Sengupta and Aleksej Aleksandrov, all Grandmasters trail the leader by half a point.
Kalyan, Sengupta and Aleksandrov registered wins over GMs Karthik Venkatarman, Mihail Nikitenko and Duc Hoa Nguyen of Vietnam in their respective ninth round games.
Luka Paichadze, who held the lead till round five, made short work of Indian Grandmaster Divya Deshmukh to take his score to 6.5 points, a point behind the leader.
Two more rounds remain to be played in the tournament.
Important results (9th round): Farrukh Amonatov (7.5) beat Boris Savchenko (6.5), Deep Sengupta (7) beat Mihail Nikitenko (5.5), Arjun Kalyan (7) beat Karthik Venkataraman (6), Aleksej Aleksandrov (7) beat D H Nguyen (4), Aditya Mittal (6.5) drew with Neelesh Saha (4.5), Luka Paichade (6.5) beat Divya Deshmukh (1.5).
M R Lalith Babu (6) drew with C K Mohan, A Shrivatri (1.5) drew M R Venkatesh (5), Kirill Stupak (4.5) beat Vikramaditya Kulkarni (1.5), L R Srihari (4) beat Vishnu Prasanna (4).
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News Source : PTI
