VALSAD: Youngsters turned on the heat and made Grandmasters sweat with fourth seed Deepan Chakkravarthy showing the way and proving too hot for Abhijit Kunte to handle in the 10th round of the Atul National `A' chess championship here on Tuesday.

A student of Madurai's Thyagaraj College of Science and Arts, Deepan pulled off a 30-move stunner over his senior Indian Oil colleague to join another team-mate and overnight leader Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the lead at seven points. Ganguly survived serious threats on the top board and got away with a draw against Salem-boy S. Arun Prasad in 39 moves.

On a day when 20-year-old Somak Palit made his third and final International Master norm by holding National junior champion Abhijeet Gupta, seasoned Grandmasters Pravin Thipsay and Dibyendu Barua, too, were extremely lucky to escape defeats at the hands of G.N. Gopal and G. Rohit, respectively.

Third seed Diwakar Prasad Singh survived the day of youngsters and overpowered 16-year-old Ashwin Jayaram to share the second spot with Arun Prasad at 6.5 points.

Fierce attack

Deepan won a complicated Sicilian Paulsen game against Kunte, who is not known to lose many games in the National championship. Deepan launched a fierce attack that Kunte tried to thwart by trading his queen and a knight for two rooks. However, there was no escape for Kunte as Deepan threatened to checkmate him almost immediately. Kunte gave up on the 30th move.

The results (10th round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly (7) drew with S. Arun Prasad (6.5); Deepan Chakkravarthy (7) bt Abhijit Kunte (6); Diwakar Prasad Singh (6.5) bt Ashwin Jayaram (5.5); Pravin Thipsay (6) drew with G. N. Gopal (6); G. Rohit (6) grew with Dibyendu Barua (6); Suvrajit Saha (6) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (6); Abhijeet Gupta (5.5) drew with Somak Palit (5.5); Tejas Bakre (5) lost to Neelotpal Das (6); Deep Sengupta (5.5) drew with M. R. Venkatesh (5.5); K. Ratnakaran (5.5) drew with B. T. Murali Krishnan (5.5); D. Harika (5.5) drew with R. B. Ramesh (5); Lanka Ravi (5.5) bt V. Saravanan (4.5); Swapnil Dhopade (4.5) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (5.5); Sudhakar Babu (4.5) drew with S. Kidambi (4.5); Swati Ghate (4) lost to Poobesh Anand (5); M. S. Thej Kumar (5) bt P. Konguvel (4); G. B. Prakash (4) lost to Syed Anwar Shazuli (5); Valay Parikh (4) lost to P. D. S. Girinath (5); Himanshu Sharma (4) lost to T. S. Ravi (5); Eesha Karavade (4) drew with Vikramaditya Kamble (4); Varugeese Koshy (3.5) lost to Abhishek Das (4); Sudhir Sinha (2.5) drew with Roktim Bandyopadhyay (4); R. R. Laxman (4.5) bye.

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