Iniyan Pa closes in on title in Global Chess

GM Iniyan Pa leads the rest of the field by one point and a draw will be enough to clinch a title win in the master’s section of the Global Chess Festival, even as he was held for a draw by IM Harsh Suresh here on Thursday.

With seven points, Iniyan has a full one-point lead over the second-placed Boris Savchenko, Suresh, Aakash Sharadchandra Dalvi, Apoorv Kamble and Ajay Santosh Parvathareddy, who all have 5.5 points each.

Iniyan will take on Parvathareddy in the ninth round. In the Challengers category, sole leader Viresh Sharnarthi was shocked by lower-rated Ashirwad Swain of Orissa and dropped down to third place with six others, who all have 6.5 points each.

Nithin Babu also stunned higher-rated FM Arun Kataria, with both jointly leading this category with seven points each. In the Junior Masters, Madhvendra Pratap Sharma continued his dominance by defeating Vinayak Koleru to retain his one-point lead. He has so far tallied 7.5 points.