Atharv Soni shares lead in All India FIDE Rating Chess tournament

Thane's Atharv Soni recorded a win over Om Ga to share le with IM Vikramitya Kulkarni and three ors after sixth round of All India FIDE Rating Chess Tournament here on Tuesday.

Among those in le 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 black pieces started with French Tarrasch variation. Ga (1807) me a mistake on 24th move by playing pawn to G4 and allowed Soni upper hand. black Bishop pair proved very strong and was instrumental in securing win for Soni.

Kulkarni (2125) was forced to share 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 le pack are Sanjeev Mishra, Kshaunish Jaiswal, and Yash Kapi. Each of se three won ir respective sixth-round matches and are in contention to finish among top with five points each.

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

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

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

Results (top 10): Round-6: IM Vikramitya 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 Ga (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 Kapi (5) beat Manya Balani (4) - 1-0; Dhruv Mu (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.