Jamshedpur: Kaushlendra Kumar of HES Chapra emerged sole leader in the Jamshedpur leg of the Telegraph Schools Chess Championship on Saturday with seven points in as many rounds.

Half a point behind Kaushlendra are Soumitra Verma (DPS, Patna) and Kumar Gaurav (Shanti Niketan Awasiya School, Muzaffarpur), while a group of six is bunched together with six points apiece.

In the top board clash featuring the two overnight leaders, third seed Kaushlendra, playing white, handed Shalini Srivastava of Carmel Junior College her first defeat of the competition.

Kaushlendra started with an open game and tried to confuse Shalini. Having failed to counter white’s moves, Shalini lost grip on the game and lost in 55 moves.

TOP BOARD RESULTS

Round VI: Kumar Gaurav drew Praveen Kumar; Soumitra Verma drew Rama Kumari; Rupesh Ranjan lost to Kaushlendra Kumar; Kumari Niketa lost to Shalini Srivastava; Priyanka Kumari drew Vijay Kumar; Aaysh Agarwal lost to Kumar Sanu; Ankit Singh drew Nitin Chandra; Sudhir Soni bt Amit Kumar; Avinash Verma drew V. Srividya; S. Sruthi bt Deepanjan Nag.

Round VII: Kaushlendra bt Shalini; Praveen lost to Verma; Rama lost to Gaurav; Dinesh lost to Rupesh; Soukhin Pramanick lost to Priyanka; Sanu bt Ravi Sinha; A. Naveen drew Ankit ; Anjani Anand bt Sudhir Soni; Srividya lost to Saikat Dutta; Niharika Jha drew Sruthi.