Bitoon, Paragua win; Gomez falls

GRANDMASTERS Mark Paragua and Richard Bitoon of the Philippines toppled their respective rivals yesterday in the seventh round of SDAT-RMK 4th Chennai Open Grand Master Chess Tournament in Chennai, India.

The Bulacan based Paragua hammered Navalgund Niranjan of India while the Medellin, Cebu native Bitoon routed Hemant Sharma also of India.

However, GM John Paul Gomez from Binan, Laguna lost his seveth round match to IM Karthikeyan of India to tie Bitoon and Paragua with 5.0 points, good for a share of 20th to 45th places.

Karthikeyan, meantime, raised his total to 6.0 points to share 3rd to 6th places with GM Hoang Thanh Trang of Hungrary, Ma Qun and Zeng Chongsheng of China.

Top seed GM Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus and Yu Ruiyuan of China share the lead with 6.5 points each. Aleksandrov nipped IM Vaibhav Suri of India while Ruiyuan upset GM Mikhailo Oleksienko of Ukraine.

Another Filipino entry GM Oliver Barbosa split the point with Pradeep Kumar of India to up his tally to 4.5 points. The Taytay, Rizal bet is in 46th to 81st places.

In the eight round, Gomez will meet FM Rajesh of India; Bitoon will battle IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy of India; Paragua will play IM Christian Endre Toth of Brazil while Barbosa will go up against CM Prince Bajaj of India. /Corresondent Marlon Bernardino