Rajkamal maintains sole lead

Rajkamal Singh Sandhu of Punjab has maintained his sole lead in the Piloo Mody International Open Chess Tournament being held at Lucknow.

Piloo Mody International Open Chess Tournament

Rajkamal Singh Sandhu of Punjab has maintained his sole lead in the Piloo Mody International Open Chess Tournament being held at Lucknow. On Thursday,Sandhu defeated his city mate Ramprakash in 32 moves of Sicilian defence in the eighth round. With this win,he has so far collected a maximum possible 8 points.

Top seed Gurpreet Pal Singh of Delhi has secured 7.5 points. In the eighth round,Gurpreet beat J Malleswara Rao of Andhra Pradesh in 25 moves of Sicilian defence.

Akashdeep of Haryana split the point with Sandeep Jain of Rajasthan in 53 moves of Catalan Opening and both players are currently at the joint third spot along with with Harish Sharma of Delhi,Abhyudaya Rajpurohit of Rajasthan and Ravi Kumar of Chattishgarh.

Harish thrashed Gaurav Bakliwal of Maharashtra in 66 moves of Guico Piano while Ravi Kumar outplayed foreign player Fide Master Emojong Elijah from Uganda in Petroffs Defence today.

Pradeep Pathak of UP lost to Abhyudaya Rajpurohit in 45 moves of Sicilian Defence. However,Vivek Shukla,also of UP,beat Shahid Azmat of Madhya Pradesh in 63 moves of Sicilian defence.

In some other important encounters,former joint winner of the tournament Rohan Shandilya of Karnataka lost to Vipal Subhashi of Bihar in 37 moves of Queen Pawn Opening. Sudhir Sinha of Bihar and TH Santhil Kumaran split the point in 51 moves while Devvrat Tiwari defeated Manoj Mishra of Madhya Pradesh in 38 moves.

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The points position after the 8th round: Rajkamal Singh Sandhu (8 points),Gurpreet Pal Singh (7.5),Sandeep Jain,Akashdeep,Ravi Kumar,Abhyudaya Rajpurohit,Harish Sharma (7 points each).

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