Gurgaon, Jan 6 (IANS): Eighteenth seed International Master Prasanna Rao created a flutter in the Gurgaon International Grandmasters Chess Tournament outwitting second seeded Grandmaster Oliver Barbosa of Philippines to leave the tournament wide open as five players are now sharing the lead with 6 points after Round 7.
Playing with dark colour pieces in declined variation of Queen’s Gambit opening, Prasanna took the initiative towards the end of a closely fought match that lasted 78 moves.
Meanwhile, the top board battle between Kravtsiv Martyn and Sahaj Grover ended without a decisive result after 34 moves arrived out of Classical Nimzo-Indian. The crucial result helped Grandmasters Alexanader Evdokimov of Russia and Tornike Sanikidze of Georgia, along with Prasanna, to catch up with the leaders.
Evdokimov defeated International Master N. Srinath while Tornike got the better of Sameer Kathmale. Twelve players are sharing second spot, adrift by half point from the leaders.
Important Round 7 results: Sahaj Grover (6) drew with Kravtsiv Martyn (UKR) (6); Oliver Barbosa (PHI) (5.5) lost to Prasanna Rao (6); N. Srinath (5) lost to Alexander Evdokimov (RUS) (6); Raset Ziatdinov (5.5) drew with John Paul Gomez (PHI) (5.5); Tornike Sanikidze (GEO) (6) beat Sameer Kathmale (5); Swayams Mishra (5.5) drew with Karthikeyan P. (5.5); Karthik V. (5.5) drew with Shyam Nikil (5.5); Merab Gagunashvili (GEO) (5) drew with Akmal Faizulaev (UZB) (5); Visakh N.R. (5) drew with Valeriy Neverov (UKR) (5); Aniruddha Deshpande (5) drew with Arun Prasad S. (5); Eldar Gasanov (UKR) (5.5) beat Abhilash Reddy (4.5); Pradeep Kumar R.A. (4.5) lost to S. Kidambi (5.5); Rajesh V.A.V. (5) drew with Deepthamsh Reddy (5); Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva (UZB) (5) drew with S. Satyapragyan (5); Kunal M. (5.5) beat Niranjan Navalgund (4.5); Vikramaditya Kulkarni (4.5) lost to Shivananda B.S. (5.5); Marat Dzhumaev (UZB) (5) beat Manav Saxena (4); Vinayak Kulkarani (4) lost to Ravi Teja S. (5); Deep Kapoor (4) lost to Nitin S. (5).