P Shyam Nikhil of TN gets his second GM norm

Aurangabad, Oct 17 (PTI) With four rounds to go, the fight intensified on top boards of the 49th National Premier Chess Championship, organised by Marathwada Chess Association at Marathwada Institute of Technology here today. Abhijeet Gupta of PSPB kept his half-point lead with 7 points in the ninth round. IM Shyam Nikhil of Tamil Nadu joined grandmasters GN Gopal of PSPB and Deepan Chakravarhty of Tamil Nadu on the second spot with 6.5 points. The feature of today's round was Shyam Nikhil's second GM norm, having made his first norm in Mayor's Cup, Mumbai last month. In the Dutch variation of the Slav defence played by GM Tejas Bakre of Indian Airlines, Gupta could not get any breakthrough after exchanging the queens on 19th move. In the bishop vs knight ending, Gupta had to give up his bishop to stop Bakre's a2 pawn from being promoted. They signed the peace treaty after eighty moves. On the second board, GN Gopal of PSPB and Deepan Chakravarthy of Tamil Nadu kept their chances alive by agreeing to split the point in a rook and pawns ending of a French defence game. Former under-17 national champion, Nikhil from Kanyakumari, held his nerves to beat former under-12 world champion Deep Sengupta of West Bengal to earn a hard-fought second 9 game GM norm. After exchanging the queens on the 30th move, Shyam took control of the open c- and d- files to gain momentum. When faced with loss of material, Deep resigned on 41st move. Former under-16 world champion, SP sethuraman of Tamil Nadu recovered his position in the championship by disposing IM Karthikeyan from the same state. Sethu sacrificed his knight on 20th move to get space advantage. Ten moves later, he exchanged the queens leaving his rook to rule the roost. Karthikeyan resigned on 41st move.