Thejkumar slips to 5th place

Karnataka's National 'A' player M.S.Thejkumar (2347) slipped to joint 5th spot along with nine other players when he drew with Kerala's K. Ratnakaran (2439) in the sixth round of the National 'B'. Thejkumar had beaten Abhishek Das (2283) of Jharkhand in the 5th round. He plays IM Poobesh Anand (2416) in the seventh round. IM Suvrajit Saha (2350) is in the sole lead with 6 points, whereas three others - IM Lanka Ravi, Vikramaditya Kamble and P. Shyam Nikhil are on 5.5 points.

The other players from the state did not fare that well either. State Champion N. Sanjay (2324) was beaten by talented youngster Swapnil Dhopade (2071) of Maharashtra. He remained on 4 points by virtue of the defeat and plays Sudhir Sinha (2191) in the next round. Asian 2005 Gold Medallist Girish Kaushik (2008) on 3 points still seems to show some hope as he had beaten higher rated Gajendra Singh (2168) in an earlier round. He plays unrated Abdul Sadique in the seventh round.

Other players from Karnataka, their points position and tomorrow's opponents - Sriram Sarja (2257) 3.5 pts versus Prasanna Rao (2104), Naveen Hegde (2116) 3 pts versus Saurav Roop (1995), Aniket Pawse (2060) 3 pts versus unrated Manohar Lal, Sushruta Reddy (2018) 2 pts versus unrated Riyaz Khan.