Darmen Sadvakasov at Gorky Sadan on Sunday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Darmen Sadvakasov of Kazakhstan surged into sole lead after Round VIII of the Calcutta Open at Gorky Sadan on Sunday.

Sadvakasov, who had beaten top seed Sergei Tiviakov of The Netherlands on Saturday, was a trifle fortunate against the 17-year-old G.N. Gopal of Kerala as he erred towards the end.

Gopal, who required a draw against Sadvakasov for his maiden GM norm, can still make it if he settles for a truce with Sriram Jha in his penultimate round match on Monday. Jha is also on verge of getting his maiden GM norm and needs a draw.

Sitting pretty on seven points, Sadvakasov later told The Telegraph: “I won a pawn in the end-game, but it was heading towards a draw since the pawns were on the same side... Gopal should have put his pawn on h4, g3 and f2 for the draw.”

P.D.S. Girinath, who drew with S. Kidambi in the eighth round, needs to win his next match for a GM norm.

While Lalit Babu has confirmed his IM norms, other prospects of the same are national under-13 boys champion Vidit Gujarathi, K. Ratnakaran, S.P. Sethuraman, Vikramaditya Kamble, Aditya Udeshi, B.T. Muralikrishnan and Arghyadip Das.

TOP BOARD RESULTS (ROUND VII)

Darmen Sadvakasov (6) bt Serjei Tiviakov (5); Alon Greenfeld (5) drew with Tigran Petrosian (5.5); Dimitri Komarov (5) drew with D.P. Singh (5); G.N.Gopal (5.5) bt S.Kidambi (4.5); Saidali Iuldachev (4.5) drew with Safin Sukhrat (4.5); Sriram Jha (5) bt Pantsulaia Levan (4); Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman (4) lost to Surya Sekhar Ganguly (5); Abdullah Al-Rakib (4.5) drew with Niaz Murshed (4.5); Deepan Chakravarthy (4.5) drew with Tejas Bakre (4.5); Alexander Fominyh (4) drew with M.R. Lalith Babu (4.5); GM Abhijit Kunte (4) drew with IM Deep Sengupta (4); P.D.S. Girinath (4.5) bt Enamul Hossain (3.5); S.P. Sethuraman (4.5) bt IM M.R. Venkatesh (3.5); R.B. Ramesh (4.5) bt Arghyadip Das (3.5); Vidit Gujarathi (4) drew with Dibyendu Barua (4); Mikheil Kekelidze (4.5) bt Somak Palit (3.5); Shankar Roy (4) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (4).

ROUND VIII

G.N. Gopal (5.5) lost to Darmen Sadvakasov (7); Surya Sekhar Ganguly (5) lost to Tigran Petrosian (6.5); Sergei Tiviakov (5.5) drew with Dimitri Komarov (5.5); Shafin Shukhrat (5.5) drew with Alon Greenfeld (5.5); D.P. Singh (5.5) drew with Sriram Jha (5.5); Niaz Murshed (4.5) lost to Saidali Iuldachev (5.5); Mikeil Kekelidze (5.5) bt Abdulla Al-Rakib (4.5); M.R. Lalit Babu (4.5) lost to Deepan Chakraborty (5.5); Tejas Bakre (4.5) lost to R.B. Ramesh (5.5); S. Kidambi (5) drew with P.D.S. Girinath (5); Dibyendu Barua (5) bt S.P. Sethuraman (4.5); Levan Pantsulaia (4) lost to B.T. Muralikrishnan (5); Ziaur Rahman (5) bt Saptarshi Roy (4); S. Satyapragyan (4) lost to Abhijit Kunte (5).