Dhopade leads Challengers Chess meet

Ahmedabad, Aug 19 (IANS)  In the ninth round of the 55th National Challengers Chess Championship, Grandmaster Swapnil Dhopade maintained his lead after beating youngster Udit Kamdar at the Karnavati Club on Saturday.

Playing with black pieces, Dhopade exploited the weakness of his opponent in the middle game to register his eighth victory of the championship and take the lead with 8.5 points. 

His Railways teammate Himanshu Sharma moved to the second spot with seven and a half points after defeating another Gujarat youngster Fenil Shah.

Playing under extreme time pressure towards the end of the first time control, Shah made crucial mistakes to allow his Grandmaster rival to maintain a firm grip on the match to secure a full point. 

Lalith Babu, Mary Ann Gomes, S. Satyapragyan and defending champion Ravi Teja share joint third spot with seven points.

Lalith signed the peace treaty with counterpart Debashis Das while Mary demolished the defences of Swayams Mishra with dark colour pieces.

Satyapragyan made short work of Akash PC Iyer and Ravi Teja moved to seven points with a 33 move victory of Nikhil Dixit of Maharahstra.