Amar Kamat, playing with white pieces on the top board, overwhelmed his opponent Vinay Kumar Mohandas, who adopted two Knights defence. True to style Amar played consistently and finished the game in 30 moves.

The second board saw a tense battle between R Chandrashekhar, who is a new comer to Mumbai, and Vaibhav Saxena. The game prolonged to end in a draw in 55 moves in a Closed Sicilian, Kings Indian attack.

The game on the third board between promising Varun Dattani and Ninad Puranik ended in a tame draw after the players played 23 moves of the Alekhine's Defence.

Omkar Kulkarni of Srirang Vidyalaya, the seventhseed suffered a setback when he lost to unfancied Aditya Desai. Omkar lost after 73 moves of the Scandinavian.

Viviktesh Agwan of Sou A K Joshi and Omkar Parab of Swami Muktananda, Kandivli, lead the field in the under-8 category at the end of the seventh round.

Viviktesh and Omkar agreed for a short draw in 13 moves in the Closed Sicilian variation.

The top seed Akshay Bhor beat Monica Maskeri in a Budapest Counter gambit which was wrongly declined by Monica.

The third board saw the Nimzo Indian opening in which Salim Ali Siddiq blundered the Queen on the 18th move. The rest was only a matter of time for Nimidev.

Film star Anil Kapoor's son Harshvardhan of Arya Vidya Mandir, Juhu, defeated Kaustubh, son of Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay in the under-8 category.

Results

Under-8 (7th round): Viviktesh Agwan (6.5) drew with Omkar Parab (6.5), Monica Maskeri (5) lost to Akshay Bhor (6), Salim Ali Siddiq (5) lost to K P Nimidev (6), Prasad Patil (6) bt Madhav Rao (5), Nadeem Abdulla (6) bt KashiKishore Sah (5), Sayali Phadke (6) bt Sourabh Nayak (5), Anuj Vijay Tawri (6) bt Ananth Shakar (4.5), Anish Menon (5.5) bt Purva Pawaskar (4.5), Rohit Bhide (5) bt Ruchita Lalmani (4), Utkarsh Gupta (5) bt Varun Dhadke (4).

Under-12 (7th round): Amar Kamat (6.5) bt Vinay Kumar Mohandas (5.5), R Chandrashekhar (6) drew with Vaibhav Saxena (6), Varun Dattani (6) drew with Ninad Puranik (6), Nilesh Yevle (5) lost to Amit Kamat (6), Omkar Kulkarni (5) lost to Aditya Desai (6), Ishan Nadkarni (5) lost to Gaurav Hingne (6), Sameer Thakkar (6) bt Yashodhan Gogte (5), Chaitanya Vaidya (5) lost to Rohil Bhat (5.5), Aditya Vora (4.5) lost to Sachin Kamat (5.5), Akash Khalwadekar (5) drew with Prerak Choudhary (5).