Mumbai, Oct 15 (IANS): International Master (IM) Vikramaditya Kulkarni of Mumbai along with Yash Watarkar (Pune), Arnav Kherdekar (Mumbai), and AIM Saikat Nath (Delhi) were sharing the lead at the end of the fifth round of the SMCA Chess School organized 1st All India FIDE Rating Open Chess Tournament 2024 played at the Russian House here on Monday.
The leaders were sharing the top spot with five points each from five rounds.
On the first two boards in the fifth round, the top-ranked Kulkarni (2185) defeated Darsh Shetty (1798) on the top board while Watarkar (1963) outwitted Palghar’s Deepak Soni (1750) on the second to maintain the winning momentum.
Kherdekar (1846) brushed aside the challenge from Delhi’s Tarun N. (1730) on the third board, while Saikat Nath (1829), also from Delhi, tasted success, defeating Karnataka’s Rajeev Rudra (1738) on the fourth board.
Two rounds were played on Monday with Kulkarni winning both of them, beating Amey Dandekar with white pieces in the fourth round. Watarkar beat Prisha Margaj and Atish Laddad defeated Sanjeev Mishra in the fourth round.
Results – Top-10:
Round 5:
Darsh Shetty (4) lost IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni (5) 0-1; Deepak Soni (4) lost Yash Watarkar (5) 0-1; Tarun N (4) lost Arnav Kherdekar (5) 0-1; AIM Saikat Nath (5) beat Rajeev Rudra (4) 1-0; Atharv Soni (4.5) beat Atish Laddad (4) 1-0; Om Gada (4.5) beat Shubham Baviskar (3.5) 1-0; Anirudh Subramanian (4.5) beat Kush Agarwal (3.5) 1-0; Yuti Patel (4) drew Kartik (4) 0.5-0.5; Palaash Mapara (4) drew Dhruv Muthe (4) 0.5-0.5; Sanjeev Mishra (4) beat Hitansh Gohil (3).
Round 4: IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni (4) beat Amey Dandekar (3) 1-0; Yash Watarkar (4) beat Prisha Margaj (3) 1-0; Atish Laddad (4) beat Sanjeev Mishra (3) 1-0; Arnav Kherdekar (4) beat Udupi Acharya (3) 1-0; Guruprasad Kulkarni (3) lost AIM Saikat Nath (4) 0-1; Anirudh Subramanian (3.5) drew Om Gada (3.5) 0.5-0.5; Darsh Shetty (4) beat Kshaunish Jaiswal (3) 1-0; AIM Samarth Patodekar (3) lost Deepak Soni (4) 0-1; Rajeev Rudra (4) beat Shraddha Padvekar (3) 1-0; Aditya Siddharth (3) lost Tarun N (4) 0-1.