Chess | Gukesh rejoins Arjun Erigaisi in lead

Thrilling finale on cards as seven players chase two leaders

The title-race of the MPL National chess championship took a thrilling turn when D. Gukesh scored an important victory over Abhijeet Gupta to rejoin Arjun Ergaisi in the lead after the 10th and penultimate round here on Wednesday.

Gukesh, the country’s youngest Grandmaster, posted a hard-fought 64-move win in a rook-and-pawn endgame to match Arjun’s tally of eight points.

Earlier, on the top board, Arjun drew with P. Iniyan in 41 moves, and on the second, two-time defending champion Aravindh Chithambaram split the point in 63 moves with Aryan Chopra.

With seven players — Iniyan, Aravindh, Aryan, S. P. Sethuraman, V. Pranav, N. R. Visakh, and Mitrabha Guha — at 7.5 points, the two leaders cannot afford to take it easy on Thursday.

Great endgame

Gukesh produced the right endgame technique to outthought Abhijeet in a battle that was fought on an even keel until the 40th move. But over the next 24 moves, it was Gukesh all the way.

The youngster’s advanced queenside-pawn was always going to provide the decisive difference once Abhijeet’s rook ran out of options to chase the black king.

Important results: 10th round: Arjun Erigaisi (8) drew with P. Iniyan (7.5); Aravindh Chithambaram (7.5) drew with Aryan Chopra (7.5); Abhijeet Gupta (6.5) lost to D. Gukesh (8); Swapnil Dhopade (6.5) lost to S. P. Sethuraman (7.5); M. R. Lalith Babu (6.5) lost to V. Pranav (7.5); N. R. Visakh (7.5) bt Aronyak Ghosh (6.5); Mitrabha Guha (7.5) bt Sambit Panda (6.5); M. Karthikeyan (7) bt K. Ratnakaran (6.5); Sammed Shete (6.5) drew with B. Adhiban (6.5); Deep Sengupta (7) bt Utsab Chatterjee (6); Deepan Chakkravarthy (6) lost to Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh (7); Harsha Bharathakoti (7) bt G. B. Harshavardhan (6); Aditya Mittal (7) bt Aaryan Varshney (6); P. Shyaam Nikhil (6.5) drew with Ravi Teja (6.5); Kousav Chatterjee (7) bt L. R. Srihari (6); A. R. Ilamparthi (6.5) drew with M. Pranesh (6.5); C. R. G. Krishna (6.5) bt Bharat Reddy (6).

Top final-round pairings: Sethuraman-Arjun; Gukesh-Aryan; Pranav-Visakh; Iniyan-Mitrabha; Deep-Aravindh.