Saurabh Anand jolts Grandmaster Mikulas

The top board game between Grandmasters Lugovskoy and Paichadze Luka ended in a hard-fought 56-move draw. The Caro Kann game saw periodical exchange of pieces, leaving them out with a king and bishop ending. The draw was agreed when they reached a position where neither had chances.

Saurabh Anand put it across Grandmaster Manik Mikulas of Slovakia, keeping his International Master Norm chance alive. In an interesting Sicilian game, he came up with a nice pawn sortie that made his offside pawn a powerful and winning one. 

The unstoppable rook pawn coupled with loss of material forced Mikulas to resign after 33 moves. Saurabh has thus far played four titled players and has remained undefeated.

Sharing the second spot with six points were Luka, Pantsulaia Levan (both Georgia), Predke Alexandr (Russia), Stupak Kirill (Belarus) and Karthik Venkataraman (India). 

Results: Round 7 (Indians unless specified): Lugovskoy Maxim (Rus) 6.5 drew with Paichadze Luka (Geo) 6, Aleksandrov Aleksej (Blr) 5.5 lost to Pantsulaia Levan (Geo) 6, Predke Alexandr (Rus) 6 bt Gajek Radoslaw (Aut) 5, Popov Ivan (Rus) 5.5 drew with NR Vignesh (5.5), Deviatkin Andrei (Rus) 5.5 drew with Erigaisi Arjun (5.5), Czebe Attila (Hun) 5 lost to Stupak Kirill (Blr) 6, Tran Tuan Minh (Vie) 5.5 drew with Nguyen Van Huy (Vie) 5.5, Karthik Venkataraman (6) bt P Shyaam Nikhil (5), Saurabh Anand (5.5) bt Manik Mikulas (Svk) 4.5

Round 6: P Shyaam Nikhil (5) lost to Lugovskoy Maxim (Rus) 6, Paichadze Luka (Geo) 5.5 bt Girish A Koushik (4.5), Harikrishnan A Ra (4.5) lost to Aleksandrov Aleksej (Blr) 5.5, Nguyen Van Huy (Vie) 5 drew with Karthik Venkataraman (5), Erigaisi Arjun (5) bt Muthaiah A L (4.5), Sahoo Utkal Ranjan (4) lost to Predke Alexandr (Rus) 5, Sarwat Walaa (Egy) 4 lost to Pantsulaia Levan (Geo) 5, C Sai Vishwesh (4) lost to Popov Ivan (Rus) 5.