Murali, Mahalakshmi sole leaders

IM Murali Karthikeyan, seeded second, took the sole lead after a challenging win over his state mate Nr Visakh after eight rounds of the National Sub Junior Chess Championship here today.
Tamil Nadu's Kathikeyan lead the pack with seven points, and is closely followed by local favourite and topseed IM Diptayan Ghosh, B Kumaran of Tamil Nadu and Siddhant Mohapatra of Odisha who all have 6.5 points each.
In a setback of sorts for Diptayan, the local lad split point on a topboard battle with Kumaran as they slipped to second position.
Sixth seed Kumaran was determined not to bow under any pressure from Diptayan as the Tamil Nadu boy built a fine defence which the top seed could not find a way to penetrate for a drab draw.

Mohaptra meanwhile carved a creditable win against N Krishna Teja to climb to second position.
In the girls section, overnight leader M Mahalakshmi (7) held her slender sole lead after being held by Kerala girl CH Meghna (6).

Top seed Mahalakshmi opted for French defence against 11th seed Meghna, but realised it was hard to crack the Keralite's barrier and agreed to split point after 18th move.
As Mahalakshmi settled for a draw, second seed GK Monnisha (6) wanted to grab the sole lead with a win over state mate fifth seed Varshini Velavan (6.5).
Instead, Varshini caused a major upset by beating Monnisha in a battle which lasted over four hours.

Results (Round 8)
Boys: B Kumaran (6.5) drew IM Diptayan Ghosh (6.5); IM Murali Karthikeyan (7) b Nr Visakh (5.5); Harsha Bharathakoti (6) drew Md Nubairshah Sheikh (6); N Krishna Teja (5.5) lost to Sidhant Mohapatra (6.5); Pranav Vijay (6) b Karthik (5); FM Aravindh Chithambaram (6) b FM Mitrabha Guha (5); Aradhya Garg (5) lost to N R Vignesh (6); Ajay Krishna (5.5) drew Ritviz Parab (5.5); V Pranavananda V (5) lost to K Anshuman (6); M Satvik (5.5) drew Rohan Ahuja (5.5); Harikrishnan (5) lost to A Muthaiah (6); Kaustuv Kundu (4.5) lost to Rajdeep Sarkar (5.5).
Girls: C H Meghna (6) drew WFM M Mahalakshmi (7); V Varshini (6.5) b WFM G K Monnisha (6); WFM R Vaishali (5.5) drew Shiny Das (5.5); U Ashwini (5.5) drew Jayesh Bhagya (5.5); Rutuja Bakshi (5.5) drew Smaraki Mohanty (5.5); WFM Arpita Mukherjee (5.5) drew Divya Garg (5.5); Dhanashree Pandit (5.5) drew Kavya Anigani (5); Riya Savant (5.5) b Samriddhaa Ghosh (4.5); Chandreyee Hajra (5.5) b Tejaswini Sagar (4.5); V Toshali (5) drew Sunyasakta Satpathy (5); Potluri Saye Srreezza (5) drew Dharani Sree (5); Hilmi Parveen (4.5) lost to Sapale Saloni (5.5); Khushi Dharewa (5) b Kavya Srishti (4).