Valay falls to Roy ploy

With this result, Yashpal Singh Sonwani of MP shot into lead with six points after his 22-move demolition of Yambem Singh of Manipur in Sicilian Najdorf. Yambem consciously avoided the Queen exchange and gave a piece with the hope that he would get a mating attack, but in the end he fell short by a move.

In the girls section, Pratibha8217;s defeat by Baisakhi Das in Round 6 has thrown open the field. After the seventh round today, Baisakhi Das of West Bengal and Shradha Samani of Maharashtra shared the lead with six pointseach.

Baisakhi Das, however, could not continue her dream run as P. Malarselvi of TN held her to a 54-move draw in Sicilian Defence. Pratibha conceded a draw to Eesha Karvade of Maharashtra in 72 moves in Sicilian Defence.

Nimmy George of Kerala scalped second seed J E Kavitha of TN in 44 moves of Petroff Defence to occupy the second place with 5.5 points.

TOPBOARD RESULTS ROUND 7

BOYS: Valay Parikh Guj 5 lost to Saptarshi Roy GNCA 5.5; Yambem Singh Mani 6; Somak Palit WB 4.5 lost to R S Prasanna TN 5.5; Byomakesh Naik Ori 5 drew with Sujeesh Ker 5; M K Narasimhan T Nagar 5.5 bt R Naveen Capa 4.5; Rakesh Agarwal Bih 5 drew with Deep Sen Gupta Bih 4.5; Deepan Chakravarthy TN 4.5 drew with Poobesh Anand TN 4.5; Aditya Vikram UP 4 lost to K Girija Kumar AP 5; S Raghuraman TN 5 bt Abhijit Gupta Raj 4; Phoobalan TN 5 bt Sayantan Dutta GNCA 4; Omkar Patvardhan Mah 5 bt R Siddharth Capa 4; M Satyajit AP 4 lost to Soumya Ranjan Mishra Ori 4.5; Haribalu TNagar 3.5 lost to P Kumaresh Chrompet 4.5; Adway Choudhary WB 4 drew with Rahul Sangma Bih 4; Vigneswaran TN 4.5 bt G Rohit AP 3.5.

GIRLS: Malarselvi TN 5.5 drew with Baisakhi Das WB 6; Shradha Samani Mah 6 bt Kruthika Nadig Mah 4.5; Nimmy George Ker 5.5 bt J E Kavitha TN 4.5; Y Pratibha TN 5 drew with Eesha Karvade Mah 4.5; Amrutha Mokal Mah 5 bt N Sandhya Ker 4; M Rajadarshini TN 4 lost to Mary Ann Gomes GNCA 5; Pannaga Magal Mah 4 lost to Anuprita Patil Mah 5; Saheli Nath WB 5 bt Priya T Nagar 4; Aswathy Balagopal Ker 4 drew with Rucha Karvade Mah 4; Aparna Krishna T Nagar 3.5 lost to K Preethi Capa 4.5; Mathuri Patil Mah 4.5 bt Jaya Arunmathai TN 3.5; Anuradha Beniwal Har 4 drew with Nabeela Farheen TN 4.