With just a day left,the participants tried their best to come up with competitive scores and push their names ahead in the sole leaders' list. Thanki Hemal Karsanji of Gujarat just managed to do that after garnering 6.5 points to jump into the sole lead after defeating overnight leader Hemant Sharma of Delhi in the eighth and the penultimate round of the 19th National under-25 Chess Championship being held at St Xavier's School,Sector 44,on Sunday. In the eighth round,Thanki Hemal Karsanji of Gujarat defeated Hemant Sharma of Delhi in 31 moves in English Opening on the top board,while there was a tough fight on the second board between Arjun Tiwari of Railways and International Master Rahul Sangma of Delhi as the game ended in a draw in 45 moves. On the third board,Gurpreet Singh Maras of Maharashtra drew with Shreyansh Dhaklia of Chattisgarh in 28 moves in the Sicilian Defense. Meanwhile,Thanki was closely followed by Hemant Sharma,Sangma Rahul,Gurpreet Singh Maras,Arjun Tiwari and Krishna Prasad with six points each. Point positions after 8th round: 6.5 Points: Thanki Hemal Karsanji (GUJ); 6 Points: Hemant Sharma (Delhi),Sangma Rahul (Delhi),Gurpreet Singh Maras (MAH),Tiwari Arjun (Railways),Pradip Tiwari (MAH),Krishna Prasad K C (TN); 5.5 Points: Shreyansh Daklia (Chhattisgarh),Bhatt Jalpan (GUJ),Singh Gursher (PUN),Rishabh Mishra (MP); 5 Points: Yogesh Gautam (HAR),Ganesh Babu S (TN),Vijay Kumar (Bihar),Neetakshya Singh (Har),Soumya Banerjee (WB); 4.5 Points: Gusain Himal (Chandigarh),Sumit Grover (J&K),Roop Saurav (Bihar),Joshua A P (UP),Akshat Chandra (Delhi),Uma Maheswaran P (TN),Piyush Manuja (Pun),Rahul Lamba (PUN),Shravan Nilkanth (MAH),Nishant Malhotra (Delhi),Jaydeep Sharma (Delhi),4 Points: Ravi Teja M (AP),Pardeep Singh Negi (Chandigarh),Singh Manpal (PUN),Nagpal Tejas (Chandigarh),Akshay Shoshta (HP),Anmol Gupta (Delhi),Nivedan Bhardwaj (Chandigarh),3.5 Points: Biswajit Bharadwaj (Assam),Ravikant Sharma (MP),Swapnil Bansod (MAH),Simranjeet Kaur (Chandigarh),Jaskeerat Singh (Chandigarh),Shivika Jain (Chandigarh),Rakesh Ningthoujam (Manipur),Tarun Kumar (HP),3 Points: Rajesh Ranjan (Bihar),Anubhav Tuknayat (Chandigarh),Subhash Chopra (HAR),Deepak Ranga Rao (Ranchi),Amarjeet Singh (Pun),Satbir Singh (Chandigarh),Ratul Sharma (Pun),Ravneet Kaur (Chandigarh),Tanya Kaushal (Chandigarh); 2.5 Points: Shweta (Chandigarh),Atul Moudgil (HP),Kashish Kaushal (Chandigarh),Surender Pal (HP),2 Points: Jashan Khurana (Chandigarh),Rishabh Jain (Chandigarh),Vipul Dogra (Chandigarh),1.5 Points: Abhimanyu Goyal (PUN),.5 Points: Gursharan Singla (Chandigarh).
