Kravtsiv snatches sole lead; Padmini turns WGM

Bhubaneswar: Ukraine Grand Master Martyn Kravtsiv jumped to sole lead with 7.5 points, upsetting overnight leader and second seed Maxim Turov in ninth round of the 2nd SCS International Open GM Chess Tournament.

Russain GM Turov, eight other Grandmasters and Indian IM B Adhiban shared the second place with seven points each. Local WIM Padmini Rout stole the show during the day when she stunned Hungarian GM Zoltan Varga to become the second WGM of Orissa after Kiran Manisha Mohanty. Padmini capitalised on a rook-knight exchange to clinch a victory and her third WGM norm after 32 moves. She had got first norm at Asian Junior Championship in Colombo in July, 2009 and the second at GM tournament in Hungary in January, 2010.Delhi school boy Vaibhav Suri emerged as another star of the day when he shocked Bangladesh GM Enamul Hossain to secure his first GM norm. He also became an IM, getting his third and final norm in the process. Two Fide Masters - GV Sai Krishna (India) and Abu Sufian Shakil (Bangladesh) - too gained IM norms. Andhra youngster Sai Krishna outwitted Brazil GM Alexandr Fier to advance to combine third place with 6.5 points.Two more GMs suffered upsets in the ninth round with Neelotpal Das (India) going down to FM Akshat Khamparia and Sergey Vokarev (Russia) losing to Bitan Banerjee. PTI