Paragua, Bitoon up; Gomez gets waylaid

MANILA, Philippines—Filipino Grandmasters Mark Paragua and Richard Bitoon bested their Indian opponents in the seventh round of the SDAT-RMK 4th Chennai Open Grand Master Chess Tournament on Monday in Chennai, India.

Paragua toppled Navalgund Niranjan while Bitoon routed Hemant Sharma to catch up with compatriot GM
John Paul Gomez in the 11-round Swiss System event.

Gomez yielded to Indian International Master Karthikeyan and remained at 5.0 points in the company of Paragua, Bitoon and 22 others.

Karthikeyan raised his total to 6 points, the same output of GM Hoang Thanh Trang of Hungary, Ma Qun and Zeng Chongsheng of China.

Top seed GM Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus and Yu Ruiyuan of China shared the lead with 6.5 points each.

Aleksandrov downed Indian IM Vaibhav Suri while Ruiyuan shocked Ukrainian GM Mikhailo Oleksienko.

Another Filipino, GM Oliver Barbosa, split the point with Indian Pradeep Kumar and was lodged at 4.5 points.

In the eighth round, Gomez will meet Indian Fide Master Rajesh, Bitoon will battle Indian IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy, and Paragua will tackle Brazilian IM Christian Endre Toth. Barbosa will try to stay in contention when he tangles with Indian Candidate Master Prince Bajaj.