Wonder-kid R. Praggnanandhaa continued his magical run by stunning fourth-seeded compatriot S.L. Narayanan and shared the second spot with two others at 4.5 points after five rounds of the World junior (under-20) chess championship here on Friday.
Russia’s Kirill Alekseenko maintained his all-win sequence to emerge leader going into Saturday’s rest day.
The results (fifth round): Open: Xu Xiangyu (Chn, 4.5) bt M. Karthikeyan (3.5); S.L. Narayanan (3) lost to R. Praggnanandhaa (4.5).
Aravindh Chithambaram (4) bt Peir Luigi Basso (Ita, 3); Shardul Gagare (3.5) drew with Harsha Bharathakoti (3.5).
Sidhant Mohapatra (3) drew with Gergely Kantor (Hun, 3); Nichita Morozov (Mda, 3) drew with Krishna Teja (3).
Vaibhav Suri (3) bt Richard Chen (Can, 2); Kumar Gaurav (3) bt Sanchez Jorge Marcos (Cub, 2).
Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh (3) bt Elkhan Bayramov (Aze, 2); Raunak Sadhwani (1.5) lost to Maaten de Vleeschauwer (Bel, 2.5).
Lukasz Nowak (Pol, 1) lost to Tarini Goyal (2).
Girls: Gunay Mammadzada (Aze, 3) lost to Aakshaksha Hagawane (4).
K. Priyanka (2.5) lost to R. Vaishali (3.5); Pratyusha Bodda (2.5) lost to Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (Uzb, 3.5); Arpita Mukherjee (2.5) lost to Anastasya Paramzina (Rus, 3.5).
Tea Gueci (Ita, 2.5) drew with G. Lasya (2.5); Parnali Dharia (2.5) drew with Boldbaatar Altantuya (Mgl, 2.5).
Assel Serikbay (Kaz, 3) bt Rutumbara Bidhar (2); Mohandeseh Alijanzadeh (Iri, 1.5) lost to M. Mahalakshmi (2.5); Saina Salonika (2) bt Jesse Niki February (RSA, 1).
