Dinesh emerges champion

Sensing that he needed just a draw, Dinesh Sharma playing with white, offered a draw at the 13th move, which was denied by J Ramakrishna (AP), who employed Sicilian Defence Alapine Variation. Later, Sharma sacrificed his knight for his rival’s three pawns and opened his opponent’s king position. In bid to shield his king, Ramakrishna was forced surrender his bishop for a pawn and later resigned at the 40th move.

Manish Joshi (MP) offered a draw to Pankaj Joshi (Venus) after 15 moves of Queen’s gambit declined game, which Pankaj Joshi accepted.

Second seed Syed Anwar Shazuli (TN) defeated C Natarajan (TN) in 51 moves in a Stonewall Variation game. Shazuli played Bb7 at the 10th move, which gave him a better position. Shazuli materialised his advantage after 42 moves by winning a pawn. Later, he won one more pawn and an exchange, thus forcing his rival to throw in the towel after 51 moves.

Results: Dinesh Kumar (LIC) 8 bt Ramakrihna J (AP) 6; Pankaj Joshi (Venus) 6.5 drew Manish Joshi (AP) 7; C Natarajan (TN) 6 lost to Syed Anwar Shazuli (TN) 7; Gunusekharan (TN) 7 bt Banik Somanth (WB) 6; Ramaraju (AP) 6.5 bt Prasanna (TNCA) 5.5; Srinivasa Rao (AP) 6 bt Rajesh (TNCA) 5; Ch Krishna (Rlys) 6 bt Misra (Ori) 5; G Rohit (AP) 5 lost to Pranjal Das (WB) 6; Malleswara Rao (AP) 4.5 lost to Pradeep PAthak (UP) 5.5; Ganesh Bhatt (Ker) 5 drew Dinesh Kumar (TN) 5; Ch Kavitha (AP) 5 bt Smeeru Thakar (HP) 4.5; Satyakam (Ori) 5 bt Raghavendra (Kar) 4; Rahul Agarwal (Bihar) 4.5 drew Amarnadh (AP) 4.5; D Sai Srinivas (AP) 4 lost to Vinuthna (AP) 5; Keerthi Rana (AP) 4 lost to Karthik (CAPA) 5; Shaji (Ker) 5 bt Srikanth (EMA) 4; Basanth Singh (Mani) 4 lost to Abhinav (AP) 5; GN Gopal (Ker) 4 lost to Mukesh Mandoli (Raj) 5; Mukesh Jain (Raj) 4 drew KS Krishna (Capa) 4; Vedadri (AP) 3.5 lost to Ajay Pande (UP) 4.5; LD Rao (IAF) 3.5 drew Jagan Mohan Reddy (Kar) 3.5; D Harika (AP) 4 bt Vennala (AP) 3; PSatyanarayana (AP) 4 bt Atul Pareek (Raj) 3; Dev Karan Bhatti (Raj) 3.5 bt Neeraj Sharma (Raj) 2.5; Inao Sharma (Mani) 3 drew Gururajan (IAF) 3; Kranthi Kiran (Chrome) 2.5 bt Sanjay Kumar (Chrome) 2.