Anwesh jumps to joint lead with win over top seed

Anwesh Upadhyaya of Orissa upset top seed P Nikil Shyam (TN) in the fourth round to emerged joint leader with S Nitin (TN) in the National Under-17 Chess Championship at Chakradharpur in Jharkhand today. This was the fourth successive win for fourth seed Anwesh, who now has four points. Among other two Orissa boys competing in the open category, Swayams Mishra occupied the second place with 3.5 points after he was held to a draw by G A Stany. Mishra’s statemate Biswajit Nayak won his fourth round to advance to joint third place with three points. Orissa girls, however, continued to struggle with Sunyasakta Satpathy (2.5), Aparajita Gochhikar (2) and Smaraki Mohanty (1.5) placed 14th, 21st and 29th respectively. In the fourth round, Sunyasakta beat statemate Smarati, while Aparajita beat Riya Savant. Orissa results (Round 4): Girls: Sunyasakta Satpathy (2.5) beat Smaraki Mohanty (Ori, 1.5), Aparajita Gochhikar (2) beat Riya Savant (Goa). Boys: Anwesh Upadhyaya (4) beat P Nikil Shyam (TN), Swayams Mishra (3.5) drew with G A Stany (Kar), Biswajeet Nayak (3) beat CH Mehar Chinna Reddy (AP). Pairings (Round-5): Girls: S Satpathy vs Devangi Patankar (Mah), A Gochhikar vs Aishwarya (Jhar), S Mohanty vs Tejaswini Sagar (Mah). Boys: A Upadhyaya vs S Nitin (TN), S Mishra vs P Nikil Shyam (TN), B Nayak vs Debashish Dutta (Asm).