MUMBAI, July 17: Ramakrishna Kashelkar of Mumbai and Shashikant Kutwal shared the lead with seven points each after the eighth round of the Maharashtra State Selection Chess Championship at the Andheri Sports Complex today.

Pallavi Shah, Prakash Date and V N K Solanky were third, just half a point behind the leaders. Ketan Khaire, Prathmesh Mokal, Utpal Sasane, Pankaj Joshi and Hemant Mandhare were in joint sixth place with six points apiece.

On the top board, Kashelkar played the French Defence against Khaire and triumphed after a five and a half hour battle when Kaire was forced to resign on the 74th move after losing his bishop. While Kutwal beat Umesh Panbude in 28 moves, Solanky and Mandhare scored wins over Salil Surendran and S S Soman, Mokal and Sasane defeated Ketan Boricha and Rashmin Pulekar.

Results: Ketan Khaire (6) lost to R Kashelkar (7); P G Date(6.5) drew with Pallavi Shah(6.5); U Panbude(5.5) lost to S Kutwal(7); S Surendran(5.5) lost to V N K Solanky(6.5); S S Soman(5) lost to H Mandhare(6); D A Andurkar(5.5) drew Prasad Ghate(5.5); P Mokal(6) beat K Boricha(5); U Sasane(6) beat R D Pulekar(5); Pankaj Joshi(6) beat Sharath Gokul(4.5); D K Golwankar(4.5) lost to V Shelekar(5.5); S Kherdekar(4.5) lost to V N Ghate(5.5); Y Aidasani(5) drew with V Chole(5); L P Khadilkar(5.5) beat S Kashelkar(4.5); D Ravishankar(5.5) beat R Sapkal(4.5); D Pandit(4.5) lost to Sanjeev Kumar(5); A Bartakke(5) beat I Rodrigues(4); M Abhyankar(4) lost to D Bhandarkar(5); S Banerjee(5) beat S M Shetye(4); Nikhil Kamat(4.5) drew with M Naik(4.5); B E Buchia(4) lost to L. Chatterjee(5).

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.