Second seed Grandmaster Ivan Popov of Russia surged ahead of the field defeating Vitaly Sivuk of Ukraine in the seventh round of the premier section of 14th Parsvnath Delhi International Chess Festival.
With his seventh victory in as many games coming in spectacular fashion, Popov maintained his all-win record and now leads by a massive 1.5 points with just three rounds remaining in the Rs. 12.5 Lakh (around 50000 euro) prize money tournament.
The Indian talents continued with their impressive run in the tournament and leading from the front was young International Master Sayantan Das who held top seed Boris Grachev of Russia to a creditable draw.
In the news for his superb performance int he last few rounds, untitled R A Pradeep Kumar also inched closer to an International Master norm by holding fellow Indian Grandmaster Sriram Jha to a draw.
With Popov on seven points as many as 11 players share the second spot on 5.5 points apiece. They are Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine, Nguyen Duc Hoa of Vietnam, Attila Czebe of Hungary, Sivuk, Grachev and Indians M R Lalith Babu, S Ravi Teja, Jha, Pradeep Kumar, N R Vignesh and Sayantan Das.
Apart from Das and Pradeep Kumar, Ravi Teja also came to the party and held Solodovnichenko to a draw while highest rated Indian Lalith Babu came back in a spectacular fashion for top honors at the expense of K Praneeth Surya.
Lower down, Sammed Jaykumar Shete and B T Muralikrishna also caused major upsets in the tournament. While Shete accounted for Ukrainian Grandmaster Adam Tukhaev, Uzbek Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev was on the receiving end against Muralikrishna.
Popov however stole the limelight showing some high quality chess yet again. Sivuk was no match in a Scotch opening game as Popov found a brilliant tactical resource sacrificing his queen to win in just 32 moves.
Important Results Round-7
| GM Ivan Popov of Russia (7) beat GM Vitaly Sivuk of Ukraine (5.5) |
| IM Sayantan Das (5.5) drew with GM Boris Grachev of Russia (5.5) |
| IM Ravi Tejas S (5.5) drew with GM Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine (5.5) |
| GM Sriram Jha (5.5) drew with Pradeep Kumar R A (5.5) |
| IM Himanshu Sharma (5) drew with GM Anton Demchenko of Russia (5) |
| GM Lalith Babu M R (5.5) beat Praneeth Surya (4.5) |
| GM Nguyen Duc Hoa (5.5) beat IM Nitin S (4.5) |
| IM Srinath N (5) drew with IM Visakh N R (5) |
| Iniyan P (4.5) lost to GM Attila Czebe of Hungary (5.5) |
| IM Vignesh N R (5.5) beat IM Krishna CRG (4.5) |
| GM Valeriy Neverov of Ukraine (5) beat Mehar Chinna Reddy (4.5) |
| IM Somak Palit (4.5) drew with GM Alberto David of Italy (4.5) |
| Himal Gusain (4.5) drew with GM Mikhail Mozharov of Russia (4.5) |
| GM Belous Vladimir of Russia (5) beat IM Rajesh VAV (4) |
| Sammed Jayakumar Shete (5) beat GM Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine (4) |
| IM Rahul Sangma (4) lost to GM Vaibhav Suri (5) |
| GM Bernadskiy Vitaliy of Ukraine (5) beat Akash Thakur (4) |
| GM Sipke Ernst of Netherlands (4.5) drew with Pratik Patil (4.5) |
| IM Murali Krishnan B T (5) beat GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan (4) |
| Prince Bajaj (4) lost to GM Nguyen Huynh Minh Huy of Vietnam (5) |
Standings after Round 7
| Rk. | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | |
| 1 | GM | Popov Ivan | RUS | 2650 | 7 |
| 2 | GM | Solodovnichenko Yuri | UKR | 2581 | 5.5 |
| 3 | GM | Sivuk Vitaly | UKR | 2566 | 5.5 |
| 4 | GM | Grachev Boris | RUS | 2652 | 5.5 |
| 5 | IM | Ravi Teja S. | IND | 2385 | 5.5 |
| 6 | GM | Nguyen Duc Hoa | VIE | 2494 | 5.5 |
| 7 | GM | Czebe Attila | HUN | 2466 | 5.5 |
| 8 | GM | Sriram Jha | IND | 2416 | 5.5 |
| 9 | IM | Das Sayantan | IND | 2411 | 5.5 |
| 10 | Pradeep Kumar R A | IND | 2302 | 5.5 | |
| 11 | GM | Lalith Babu M R | IND | 2553 | 5.5 |
| 12 | IM | Vignesh N R | IND | 2448 | 5.5 |
| 13 | GM | Demchenko Anton | RUS | 2596 | 5 |
| 14 | IM | Visakh N R | IND | 2388 | 5 |
| 15 | IM | Himanshu Sharma | IND | 2385 | 5 |
| 16 | GM | Bernadskiy Vitaliy | UKR | 2546 | 5 |
| 17 | GM | Vaibhav Suri | IND | 2552 | 5 |
| 18 | IM | Rathnakaran K. | IND | 2457 | 5 |
| 19 | IM | Murali Krishnan B T | IND | 2260 | 5 |
| 20 | IM | Narayanan Srinath | IND | 2478 | 5 |
| 21 | GM | Neverov Valeriy | UKR | 2506 | 5 |
| 22 | GM | Nguyen Huynh Minh Huy | VIE | 2489 | 5 |
| 23 | GM | Belous Vladimir | RUS | 2557 | 5 |
| 24 | Harsha Bharathakoti | IND | 2362 | 5 | |
| 25 | Sammed Jaykumar Shete | IND | 2307 | 5 | |
| 26 | IM | Akash G | IND | 2408 | 5 |
| 27 | FM | Mehar Chinna Reddy C.H. | IND | 2293 | 4.5 |
| 28 | GM | Mozharov Mikhail | RUS | 2559 | 4.5 |
| 29 | GM | David Alberto | ITA | 2597 | 4.5 |
| 30 | Gusain Himal | IND | 2335 | 4.5 | |
| 31 | IM | Nitin S. | IND | 2400 | 4.5 |
| 32 | FM | K. Praneeth Surya | IND | 2429 | 4.5 |
| 33 | Iniyan P | IND | 2275 | 4.5 | |
| 34 | Patil Pratik | IND | 2270 | 4.5 | |
| 35 | IM | Palit Somak | IND | 2357 | 4.5 |
| 36 | Lokesh N. | IND | 2255 | 4.5 | |
| 37 | GM | Ernst Sipke | NED | 2536 | 4.5 |
| 38 | FM | Nihal Sarin | IND | 2217 | 4.5 |
| 39 | IM | Shyaamnikhil P | IND | 2428 | 4.5 |
| 40 | CM | Rathanvel V S | IND | 2099 | 4.5 |
| 41 | IM | Krishna C R G | IND | 2387 | 4.5 |
| 42 | IM | Ramnath Bhuvanesh.R | IND | 2414 | 4.5 |
| 43 | Navalgund Niranjan | IND | 2223 | 4.5 | |
| 44 | Hemant Sharma (del) | IND | 2242 | 4.5 | |
| 45 | Anilkumar O.T. | IND | 2070 | 4.5 | |
| 46 | Kulkarni Rakesh | IND | 2349 | 4.5 | |
| 47 | Kumar Gaurav | IND | 2030 | 4.5 | |
| 48 | Deshpande Aniruddha | IND | 2257 | 4.5 | |
| 49 | WIM | Michelle Catherina P | IND | 2216 | 4.5 |
| 50 | Dahale Atul | IND | 2088 | 4.5 | |
| 51 | IM | Kathmale Sameer | IND | 2306 | 4.5 |
| 52 | Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad | IND | 2248 | 4 | |
| 53 | GM | Tukhaev Adam | UKR | 2556 | 4 |
| 54 | IM | Rajesh V A V | IND | 2338 | 4 |
| 55 | Sahoo Utkal Ranjan | IND | 2297 | 4 | |
| 56 | IM | Sangma Rahul | IND | 2303 | 4 |
| 57 | FM | Thakur Akash | IND | 2341 | 4 |
| 58 | Manush Shah | IND | 2003 | 4 | |
| 59 | Erigaisi Arjun | IND | 2238 | 4 | |
| 60 | GM | Dzhumaev Marat | UZB | 2495 | 4 |
| 61 | WIM | Nandhidhaa Pv | IND | 2111 | 4 |
| 62 | Aradhya Garg | IND | 2316 | 4 | |
| 63 | Hirthickkesh Pr | IND | 2187 | 4 | |
| 64 | Ojas Kulkarni | IND | 2000 | 4 | |
| 65 | GM | Esen Baris | TUR | 2530 | 4 |
| 66 | Snehal Bhosale | IND | 2155 | 4 | |
| 67 | IM | Krishna Teja N | IND | 2246 | 4 |
| 68 | Suvradeepta Das | IND | 2060 | 4 | |
| 69 | FM | Praggnanandhaa R | IND | 2174 | 4 |
| 70 | WFM | Srija Seshadri | IND | 2092 | 4 |
| 71 | Jain Naveen | IND | 2113 | 4 | |
| 72 | Sankalp Gupta | IND | 2068 | 4 | |
| 73 | FM | Rajdeep Sarkar | IND | 2267 | 4 |
| 74 | Arjun Kalyan | IND | 2107 | 4 | |
| 75 | CM | Prince Bajaj | IND | 2268 | 4 |
| 76 | FM | Matta Vinay Kumar | IND | 2163 | 4 |
| 77 | Nishant Malhotra | IND | 2099 | 4 | |
| 78 | IM | Das Arghyadip | IND | 2463 | 4 |
| 79 | Debashish Dutta | IND | 2111 | 4 | |
| 80 | Srijit Paul | IND | 2259 | 4 | |
| 81 | FM | Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari | IND | 2252 | 4 |
| 82 | Bhambure Shantanu | IND | 2120 | 4 | |
| 83 | Ram S. Krishnan | IND | 2212 | 4 | |
| 84 | Koustav Chatterjee | IND | 2097 | 4 | |
| 85 | Shreyansh Daklia | IND | 2212 | 4 | |
| 86 | Harikrishnan.A.Ra | IND | 2172 | 4 | |
| 87 | Rahul Srivatshav P | IND | 2086 | 3.5 | |
| 88 | Kulkarni Vinayak | IND | 2043 | 3.5 | |
| 89 | IM | Chakravarthi Reddy M | IND | 2176 | 3.5 |
| 90 | FM | Gajwa Ankit | IND | 2335 | 3.5 |
| 91 | Audi Ameya | IND | 2061 | 3.5 | |
| 92 | Santu Mondal | IND | 2195 | 3.5 | |
| 93 | Subhayan Kundu | IND | 2069 | 3.5 | |
| 94 | Debarshi Mukherjee | IND | 2233 | 3.5 | |
| 95 | Sumit Grover | IND | 2028 | 3.5 | |
| 96 | Deepak Katiyar | IND | 2107 | 3.5 | |
| 97 | Harshita Guddanti | IND | 1994 | 3.5 | |
| 98 | Aditya Basu | IND | 1959 | 3.5 | |
| 99 | Arjun Adappa | IND | 1960 | 3.5 | |
| 100 | CM | Sadhwani Raunak | IND | 2104 | 3.5 |
| 101 | GM | Gabrielian Artur | RUS | 2545 | 3.5 |
| 102 | Nath Rupankar | IND | 2038 | 3.5 | |
| 103 | Mulay Pratik | IND | 1926 | 3.5 | |
| 104 | Saurabh Anand | IND | 2097 | 3.5 | |
| 105 | Lakshmi Narayanan M V | IND | 2205 | 3.5 | |
| 106 | Anant Prabhudesai | IND | 1818 | 3.5 | |
| 107 | Choudhary Jitendra Kumar | IND | 2066 | 3.5 | |
| 108 | CM | Gukesh D | IND | 2041 | 3.5 |
| 109 | Bala Kannamma P | IND | 2020 | 3.5 | |
| 110 | Joshi Govind Ballabh | IND | 2113 | 3.5 | |
| 111 | Aansh Gupta | IND | 2033 | 3.5 | |
| 112 | WIM | Ivana Maria Furtado | IND | 2277 | 3.5 |
| 113 | Doshi Moksh Amitbhai | IND | 1899 | 3.5 | |
| Sahil Tickoo | IND | 1889 | 3.5 | ||
| 115 | Vakil Akhtara | IND | 1853 | 3.5 | |
| 116 | Tiwari Arjun | IND | 2125 | 3.5 | |
| 117 | Gandhi Anish | IND | 2037 | 3.5 | |
| 118 | Shrutarshi Ray | IND | 2103 | 3.5 | |
| 119 | CM | Nikhil Magizhnan | IND | 1601 | 3.5 |
| 120 | Gavi Siddayya | IND | 1971 | 3.5 | |
| 121 | Ganguly Ritabroto | IND | 1946 | 3.5 | |
| 122 | Harshavardhan G B | IND | 1993 | 3.5 | |
| 123 | Singh S. Vikramjit | IND | 2155 | 3 | |
| 124 | Phadke Sohan | IND | 2045 | 3 | |
| 125 | CM | Aditya Mittal | IND | 1960 | 3 |
| 126 | WIM | Parnali S Dharia | IND | 2002 | 3 |
| 127 | Adhithya S | IND | 2018 | 3 | |
| 128 | Cholleti Sahajasri | IND | 2002 | 3 | |
| 129 | Barath Kalyan M | IND | 1903 | 3 | |
| 130 | Gurung Rakesh | IND | 1981 | 3 | |
| 131 | Supriya Joshi | IND | 1981 | 3 | |
| 132 | CM | Sharang Sanjeev Kapoor | IND | 2053 | 3 |
| 133 | Didwania Vishal | IND | 2014 | 3 | |
| 134 | Dushyant Sharma | IND | 1732 | 3 | |
| 135 | Pardeep Arora | IND | 2054 | 3 | |
| 136 | Raahul V S | IND | 1975 | 3 | |
| 137 | Vijay Keerthi K. | IND | 2248 | 3 | |
| 138 | Srikanth K. | IND | 1918 | 3 | |
| 139 | Vantika Agrawal | IND | 2048 | 3 | |
| 140 | Vardan Nagpal | IND | 1930 | 3 | |
| 141 | Elancheralathan P | IND | 1876 | 3 | |
| 142 | Ambarish Sharma | IND | 1861 | 3 | |
| 143 | WCM | Sapale Saloni | IND | 1892 | 3 |
| 144 | Kavinda Akila | SRI | 1908 | 3 | |
| 145 | Nayak Rajesh | IND | 2023 | 2.5 | |
| 146 | Shailesh Dravid | IND | 2230 | 2.5 | |
| 147 | Sa Kannan | IND | 2002 | 2.5 | |
| 148 | Priyanka K | IND | 1961 | 2.5 | |
| 149 | Dave Sneh | IND | 1739 | 2.5 | |
| 150 | Joshi Abhijeet | IND | 1895 | 2.5 | |
| 151 | FM | Tiwari Ashwani | IND | 1992 | 2.5 |
| 152 | Darpan Inani | IND | 1995 | 2.5 | |
| 153 | Vijay Anand M. | IND | 1858 | 2.5 | |
| 154 | FM | Mohammad Fahad Rahman | BAN | 2278 | 2.5 |
| 155 | Subba Raju S. | IND | 1789 | 2.5 | |
| 156 | Negi Virender Singh | IND | 2000 | 2.5 | |
| 157 | Deepak Rai | IND | 1829 | 2.5 | |
| 158 | Negi D.S. | IND | 1869 | 2.5 | |
| 159 | Madhurima Shekhar | IND | 1963 | 2.5 | |
| 160 | Tarun V Kanth | IND | 1871 | 2.5 | |
| 161 | CM | Raja Rithvik R | IND | 1887 | 2.5 |
| 162 | Lakshmi Sandeep Naidu V | IND | 2011 | 2.5 | |
| 163 | Pradip Tiwari | IND | 2013 | 2.5 | |
| 164 | WFM | Tarini Goyal | IND | 1908 | 2.5 |
| 165 | Sanjeet Manohar | IND | 2008 | 2.5 | |
| 166 | Balkishan A. | IND | 1947 | 2.5 | |
| 167 | Rajesh Kumar Nath | IND | 1806 | 2.5 | |
| 168 | Prithu Gupta | IND | 1803 | 2.5 | |
| 169 | Chaudhary Sushil | NEP | 1722 | 2.5 | |
| 170 | Prasant N Nayagam | IND | 1747 | 2.5 | |
| 171 | WCM | Chandreyee Hajra | IND | 2050 | 2.5 |
| 172 | FM | Shrestha Sujendra Prasad | NEP | 1913 | 2.5 |
| 173 | Shweta Gole | IND | 1915 | 2 | |
| 174 | Kakumanu Kautil | IND | 2044 | 2 | |
| 175 | WCM | Salonika Saina | IND | 1926 | 2 |
| 176 | Naveen S Hegde | IND | 1966 | 2 | |
| 177 | WCM | Isha Sharma | IND | 1927 | 2 |
| 178 | Ritam Nag | IND | 2000 | 2 | |
| 179 | WFM | Arpita Mukherjee | IND | 1934 | 2 |
| 180 | Ovezdurdiyeva Jemal | TKM | 1998 | 2 | |
| 181 | Jadhav Vaibhavi | IND | 1676 | 2 | |
| 182 | Mishra Anwesha | IND | 1855 | 2 | |
| 183 | Sanjit Dutta | IND | 1738 | 2 | |
| 184 | Alahakoon Isuru | SRI | 1979 | 1.5 | |
| 185 | Archi Agrawal | IND | 1633 | 1.5 | |
| 186 | CM | Mendonca Leon Luke | IND | 1859 | 1.5 |
| 187 | Shuban Saha | IND | 1885 | 1.5 | |
| 188 | Joy Antony | IND | 1872 | 1.5 | |
| 189 | Bhanot Stuti | IND | 1767 | 1.5 | |
| 190 | Panesar Vedant | IND | 1842 | 1.5 | |
| 191 | Diwan Rajesh | IND | 1820 | 1.5 | |
| 192 | Roop Saurav | IND | 1911 | 1.5 | |
| 193 | Yalkanova Maya | TKM | 1896 | 1.5 | |
| 194 | Devansh Ratti | IND | 1846 | 1.5 | |
| 195 | Saksham Rautela | IND | 1826 | 1.5 | |
| 196 | IM | Wazeer Ahmad Khan | IND | 1907 | 1 |
| 197 | Sharma Manoj | IND | 1881 | 1 | |
| 198 | Kunal Kakumanu | IND | 1924 | 0 | |
| 199 | Purushothaman T | IND | 1955 | 0 | |
| Ashutosh Kumar | IND | 1907 | 0 |
