Atharv Soni shares lead in All India FIDE Rating Chess tournament

Thane's Atharv Soni recorded a win over Om Gada to share the lead with IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni and three others after the sixth round of the All India FIDE Rating Chess Tournament here on Tuesday.

Among those in the lead are Maharashtra ’s Yash Watarkar and Arnav Kherdekar as well as Delhi’s AIM Saikath Nath. All six are on 5.5 points each.

Soni (rating 1968), playing with the black pieces started with the French Tarrasch variation. Gada (1807) made a mistake on the 24th move by playing the pawn to G4 and allowed Soni the upper hand. The black Bishop pair proved very strong and was instrumental in securing the win for Soni.

Kulkarni (2125) was forced to share the honours with city mate Kherdekar (1846) while Watarkar (1963) from Pune faced quite a challenge from Nath (1829) before splitting two points.

Following closely behind the lead pack are Sanjeev Mishra, Kshaunish Jaiswal, and Yash Kapadi. Each of these three won their respective sixth-round matches and are in contention to finish among the top with five points each.

Mumbai’s Mishra (1885) defeated Thane’s Anirudh Subramanian (1627) on the fourth board, while Jaiswal (1641) beat the higher-ranked Saurabh Kulkarni (1839).

Palghar’s Kapadi (1818) of Palghar got the better of Manya Balani (1590) of Gujarat to stay in the hunt.

Darsh Shetty (Mumbai), Deepak Soni (Palghar), Yuti Patel (Mumbai), and Tarun N (Delhi) also won their sixth round matches and are in contention of finishing at the top all having five points each.

Results (top 10): Round-6: IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni (5.5) drew with Arnav Kherdekar (5.5) - 0.5-0.5; Yash Watarkar (5.5) drew with AIM Saikat Nath (5.5) - 0.5-0.5; Om Gada (4.5) lost to Atharv Soni (5.5) - 0-1; Sanjeev Mishra (5) beat Anirudh Subramanian (4.5) - 1-0; Kshaunish Jaiswal (5) beat Saurabh Kulkarni (4) - 1-0; Yash Kapadi (5) beat Manya Balani (4) - 1-0; Dhruv Muthe (4) lost to Darsh Shetty (5) - 0-1; Shriyans Agharkar (4) lost to Deepak Soni (5) - 0-1; Rajeev Rudra (4) lost to Yuti Patel (5) - 0-1, Shravana Agraval (4) lost to Tarun N (5) - 0-1.