In the open section, Raj Parakh defeated Vaibhav Saxena to move half a point ahead of the field. Both Akash and Raj are the sole leaders in their fields.

Akash and Aditya in the under-10 section agreed to a draw after 47 moves in the Vienna opening game. On the second baord, Rohil Bhat offered a draw in an inferior position and his opponent, Ishan Nadkarni accepted the offer. On the third board, Mugdha Variyar, who had won the under-12 girls title, was defeated by Niharika Thakkar in a Reti opening game.

In the open section, Vaibhav mishandled his Yugoslav attack against Raj Parakh's Sicilian Dragon and lost after 46 moves. On the second board, AmarKamath, the overnight leader, suffered his second successive defeat of the day, losing to Sagar Sadavarte in a Petroff Defence game.

Results (eighth round)

Open category: Vaibhav Saxena (6.5) lost to Raj Parakh (7.5); Amar Kamath (6) lost to Sagar Sadavarte (7); Srinivas Ramkumar (7) beat Sameer Thakkar (6); Saurabh Barve (7) bt R Chandrashekar (6); Srinivas Menon (6.5) drew with Archin Awate (6.5); Chaitanya Vaidya (6) drew with Sagar Masurekar (6); Nikhil Bhat (6.5) bt Amogh Kulkarni (5.5); Devendra Sathe (5.5) lost to Amit Kamath (6.5); Maheshwar Karan (6) bt Ameya Karandikar (5); Nilesh Yevle (5) lost to Mahesh Revaskar (6).

U-10: Akash Khalwadekar (7.5) drew with Aditya Vora (7); Rohil Bhat (6.5) drew with Ishan Nadkarni (6.5); Mugdha Variyar (6) lost to Niharika Thakkar (7); Siddeshwar Birajdar (6.5) drew with Ambar Khalwadekar (6.5); Akshay Deshmukh (7) bt Anuj Moralwar (6); Akshay Bhor (6) bt KP Nimidev (5.5); Ashay Awate (6) bt Akarsh Rai (5); Alka Anand (5) lost to Sachin Bedekar(6); Sachin Kamath (6) bt Purva Variyar (5).