PANJIM: Goa’s IM Anurag Mhamal is on the ninth position at the end of the seventh round of the Glocal Square 53rd National Challengers Chess Championship, at Nagpur, on Friday. Around 261 players are participating by representing various States to qualify for the National Premier.
The 23rd seeded Anurag (2393) defeated GM Deepan Chakkravarthy highly rated (2500) player of Railways and also again drew with GM Abhijit Kunte (2493) of Maharashtra in the sixth round and in the seventh round he held yet another highly rated and second seeded GM Lalith Babu MR (2570) of PSPB to score 5.5 points at the end of the seventh round.
Anurag will be playing against fifth seeded GM Shyam Sunder (2499) of AAI.
Laxman RR (2425) is leading with six points.
Other Goan players, CM Nitish Belurkar (1998) is on 3.5 points as he lost to Abhishek Das (2205) of Indian Railways in the seventh round while Anant Prabhudesai is also on 3.5 points after drawing with Swaraj Palit (2015) of Jharkhand.
Amey Audi (1952) lost to Lasa Nado of Arunachal Pradesh and remained on 2.5 points. Riddhi Zantye (1603) also drew with Sanskriti Goyal (1784) of Uttar Pradesh and CM Mendonca Leon remained on 2.5 points.
