Global chess festival

WIM Oshini Gunawardhana Devindya: IM Soham Kamotra caused a flutter at the Global Chess Festival, displaying a strong defence to halt Iniyan Pa’s winning streak in the sixth round of the Master’s section at the World Trade Centre.

Iniyan had been in blistering form, winning all his first five games, and looked set to score his sixth successive victory in the early stages of his game, but lost his way and had to settle for a draw against Kamotra, who incidentally is the first and only International Master (IM) from Jammu and Kashmir.

Iniyan, with 5.5 points, however, holds onto a slender half-point lead over second-placed Aakashchandra Dalvi, while Kamotra, Ayush Sharma, and Harsh Suresh are bunched behind with 4.5 points each. In other results, GM Abhijit Gupta broke the three-game winning streak of prodigy WIM Oshini Gunawardhana Devindya.