Abhijeet maintains sole lead after playing draw with Rajpara

Overnight leader Abhijeet Gupta maintained his sole lead after signing peace with IM Ankit Rajpara in the eighth round of the 12th Parsvnath International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament here today.
Playing with white pieces in an English opening game, Gupta drew the game after 24 moves to maintain his one point lead.
Bobir Sattarov of Uzebkistan held Grandmaster Lalith Babu in the eighth round to be joint second with Grandmasters Eldar Gasanov, Valeriy Neverov of Ukraine, John Paul Gomez of Philippines and Russian Grandmaster Alexander Evdokimov and Rajapra with six points each.
In the penultimate round tomorrow Gupta takes on Evdokimov while Lalith paired with Gomez. Sattarov plays with Neverov to complete his nine round GM Norm as he already completed the requirements and just need to play the ninth round to achieve the same.

Top results (Indians unless specified):
Round - 8 :- GM Abhijeet Gupta (7) drew with IM Ankit Rajpara (6); Bobir Sattarov of UZB (6) drew with GM Lalith Babu M R (6); GM Eldar Gasanov of UKR (6) drew with GM Valeriy Neverov of UKR (6); GM Deep Sengupta (5) lost to GM Alexander Evdokimov of RUS (6); GM Merab Gagunashvili of GEO (5.5) drew with GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (5.5); IM Karthikeyan Murali (5.5) drew with GM Vaibhav Suri (5.5); GM John Paul Gomez of PHI (6) beat IM Swayams Mishra (5); GM Kravstiv Martyn (4.5) given walk over to IM VAV Rajesh (5.5); GM Levan Pantsulaia of GEO (5.5) beat IM K Rathnakaran (4.5); FM Pavlo Vorontsov fo UKR (5) drew with GM Oliver Barbosa of PHI (5); Sameer Kathmale (5.5) beat GM Venkatesh M R (4.5); GM Arun Prasad (5) drew with Vignesh N R (5); IM Saravanan V (5.5) beat Sahaj Grover (4.5); GM Laxman R R (5.5) beat Kurbonboeva Sarvinoz of UZB (4.5); IM Shyam Nikil (5) drew with IM Nitin S (5); WIM Ivana Maria Furtado (4.5) lost to IM N Srinath (5.5); GM S Kidambi (5) drew with Visakh N R (5); IM Shivananda B S (4) lost to GM Tornike Sanikidze (5); IM Saptarshi Roy (5) beat IM Rahul Sangma (4).