Thejkumar leads the charge for Karnataka

After drawing with 5th seed Grandmaster Abdulla
Al Rakib (ELO 2506) of Bangladesh in the third
round, former Under 25 National Champion
M.S. Thejkumar (ELO 2355) of Karnataka kept himself in the
hunt for an International Master Norm when he
drew with another Grandmaster - Deepan
Chakravarty (ELO 2492) of Madurai - in the fourth round
of the Commonwealth Chess Championships
being played in New Delhi.

Thejkumar is one of the promising youngsters of
Karnataka. Today he showed that by holding his
fancied opponent to a draw in a Queen's Indian Defence
Opening after 19 moves. 6th seeded Deepan's Kingside position
had weakened a bit and and Thejkumar had control
of the open 'C' file when the peace treaty was signed so
the Grandmaster has to consider himself to be a trifle
lucky to salvage a half point from this encounter.

G. A. Stany (ELO 2097) also did well to hold Pakistani
Tanvir Gilani (ELO 2300) to a draw in the third round.
Finally Antonio Viani D'Cunha (ELO 1988) upset the
applecart of Gujarati Praful Mehta (ELO 2207) by beating
him in a nice game to notch his second point in three
encounters.