Chennai (PTI): World Under-16 champion B Adhiban blew up his chances and went down to Ashwin Jayaram, who emerged sole leader after the seventh round of the Asian Junior Chess Championship hereon Friday.
With two more rounds remaining, the championship is thrown open, as six players are trailing Ashwin, who has seven points, by only half a point.
As Mary Ann Gommes, the defending champion got the better of joint leader Bhakthi Kulkarni, she and top seed Kruttika Nadig share the lead in the girls' section with 6 points apiece in the women's section.
Ashwin employed the Sicilian defence and both players set up a fast aggressive pace. Adhiban offered exchange sacrifice, which was accepted by Ashwin.
Adhiban had many a chances to claim a draw under 3 fold repetition rule and that too under heavy time pressure with a few seconds left on the clock. The spirited fight helped Ashwin to pocket a point in 63 moves.
Deep Sen Gupta, a former under-12 world champion suffered his second loss in the championship, losing to Tamil Nadu's youngster S Nitin. Nitin sacrificed a knight and recovered splendidly to go three pawns up in the end game.
Mary had a promising position from the word go and maintained it to defeat Bhakti on the top board.
Nadig also won without much ado against the promising youngster Padmini Rout, the world under 14 champion.