While Abhijeet is on eight points, Tamil Nadu GMs Deepan Chakravarthy and SP Sethuraman and Kerala`s GN Gopal have garnered seven points each in the tournament organised by the Marathawada Chess Association at MIT campus, Aurangabad. An absorbing game that went the full distance was between former world under 16 champion Sethuraman and GM Tejas Bakre of Indian Airlines as the former triumphed after 90 moves.
In a closed position of English opening, both 2010 runner up GN Gopal and the Paris Open champion S Arun Prasad from PSPB did not want to jeopardise their chances and had a safe draw in 30 moves. So was the Ruy Lopez game between the grandmasters Deepan Chakravarthy and Abhijit Kunte of PSPB, which was also a 30 mover draw. Deep Sengupta, a former winner of Doeberl Cup in Australia, demolished former Asian Junior champion P Karthikeyan in just 22 moves of a two knights defence game.
G Akash of TN held 2010 champion Parimarjan Negi of PSPB in 42 moves of a Sicilian defence, followed by Negi. Though Akash had a g-pawn in a rook vs rook ending, he could not convert it to a win. Mumbai players, former champion Pravin Thipsay and Aditya Udeshi drew their game in 33 moves in a Scandinavian defence. In another tussle between two Maharashtra players representing Railways, Shasikant Kutwal overcame Vikramaditya Kulkarni in 72 moves.