By Admin 
Seven players — GMs K. Sasikiran, Deep Sengupta and Abhijeet Gupta, IMs Aronyak Ghosh, Ayush Sharma and Harsh Suresh and IM-elect Ajay Santhosh Parvathareddy were on top with six points apiece after the seventh round of the 62nd National chess championship here on Sunday.
Sasikiran declined the Queen’s Gambit by Abhijeet, forcing the duo to share points after 31 moves. N. Surendran caused an upset, beating GM Prraneeth Vuppala with the Sicilian defence, while top seed Pa Iniyan and young IM H. Goutham Krishna agreed to a draw on the third board.
Deep defeated IM Sidhant Mohapatra, who went wrong in the double rook and knight endgame, and Ayush thwarted IM Manish Anto Cristiano’s ambitious knight sacrifice.
The leader board: K. Sasikiran, Aronyak Ghosh, Ajay Santhosh Parvathareddy, Ayush Sharma, Gupta Abhijeet, Sengupta Deep, Harsh Suresh (all six points), Aaditya Dhingra, M.R. Lalit Babu, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Harshit Ranjan Sahu, J. Deepan Chakkravarthy, S. Ravi Teja, S.P. Sethuraman, Pa Iniyan, Kashish Manoj Jain, Manas Gaikwad, H. Goutham Krishna, Ayaan Garg , Utsab Chatterjee, S. Nitin, N. Surendran (all 5.5 points).