Third seed Soumya Thakurta, one of the leaders, at Gorky Sadan on Monday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: Four players shared the top spot after the eighth round of The Telegraph Schools’ Chess championship at the Alekine Chess Club in Gorky Sadan on Monday.

Debaditya Sinha Biswas, Bitan Banerjee, Soumya Thakurta and Satyajit Kundu are the joint leaders with seven points each.

Close on their heels, are a bunch of five players with 6.5 points each. Overnight joint leader, Satyajit Kundu of Vivekananda Mission School was content to retain his position at the top and decided to play safe by opting for a draw in both of his games. Satyajit drew his game with Hemant Sharma of Delhi in the morning, while later in the day he drew with Avi Bagdi of Madhya Pradesh in just 15 moves.

With three rounds to go, the 18 th edition of this premier school tournament is wide open and is poised for an exciting finish. This 11 round Swiss League tournament is being presented by Linc and co-sponsored by Bata.

Second seed, Debaditya Sinha Biswas of Salt Lake Point School came back into reckoning by winning both his games, though he was fortunate to win against Rami Kumari in the 8th round. Rama got to an excellent position from the opening, but she sacrificed two pieces for no compensation after which she lost her position.

Third seed, Soumya Thakurta of St James’ School, too, inched his way to the top by his convincing win against Hemant in the 8th round. After his reversal on Sunday, the British U-14 champion Ankush Khandelwal won both his games against Arghyadeep Das and Mohana Sengupta respectively to take his tally to 6.5 points. Bitan Banerjee of Baruipur HS kept his cool against Saurav Chakraborti of St James in a game of nerves, as both the players were in acute time pressure. Saurav lost a rook after which he resigned.

TOP BOARD RESULTS

Round VII ?? Hemant Sharma (6.5) drew Satyajit Kundu (6.5); Avi Bagdi (6) drew Bitan Banerjee (6); Abhratanu Dutta (5) lost to Debaditya Sinha Biswas (6); Soumya Thakurta (6) bt Padmini Rout (5); Kaushalendra Kumar (6) bt Suman Basu (5); Sandipan Chatterjee (5.5) drew Debanjan Das (5.5); Payel Guha (5) lost to Rama Kumari (6); Ankesh Dubey (5.5) drew Antarip Roy (5.5); Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (5.5) drew Chandrashis Mazumdar (5.5); Saurav Chakraborti (6) bt Subhabrata Das (5); Amar Sen (5) drew Kh. Sanjoy Singh (5); Nilabhro Dutta (5) drew with Aniruddah Majumdar (5); Arghyadeep Das (4.5) lost to Ankush Khandelwal (5.5); Avinash Singh (5.5) bt L. Shakespeare (4.5); Sumit Kumar (5) drew with Abdullah Al Saif (5); Shaati Mazumder (5) drew with Ankit Banerjee (5); Swarup Dey Sarkar (5) drew with Priyanka Kumari (5); Mohana Sengupta (5.5) bt Sayan Mazumder (4.5); Vishal Hariharan Iyer (4.5) lost to Abhirup Kar (5.5); Kinjal Basu (4) lost to Prantik Roy (5);

Round VIII ?? Hemant Sharma (6.5) lost to Soumya Thakurta (7); Satyajit Kundu (7) drew Avi Bagdi (6.5); Rama Kumari (6) lost to Debaditya Sinha Biswas (7); Bitan Banerjee(7) bt Saurav Chakraborti (6); Antarip Roy (6) drew Kaushalendra Kumar (6.5); Chandrashis Mazumdar (6) drew Sandipan Chatterjee (6); Abhirup Kar (5.5) lost to Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (6.5); Ankush Khandelwal (6.5) bt Mohana Sengupta (5.5); Debanjan Das (6) drew with Ankesh Dubey (6); Suman Basu (6) bt Avinash Singh (5.5); Kh. Sanjoy Singh (6) bt Asish Gupta (5); Prantik Roy (5.5) drew with Amar Sen (5.5); Ankit Banerjee (5.5) drew with Nilabhro Dutta (5.5); Padmini Rout (6) bt Ganesh Kisku (VC)(5); Aniruddah Majumdar (5) lost to Abhratanu Dutta (6); Biswajit Naik (5) lost to Pallabi Roy (6); Diptayan Ghosh (5.5) drew with Sukanya Dutta (5.5); Nishant Kathrni (5.5) drew with Rishi Shankar (5.5); Gaurav Bhadhuri (5.5) drew with Sayantan Das (5.5); Parikshit Upadhyay (5.5) drew with Raj Goenka(5.5).