Last night, Gautam Jain beat Saniru Atulugamage with the Black pieces to take the sole lead in the Club Championship with 4/4, making him the clear tournament favourite. With just two rounds remaining, can anyone stop him?
Elliott Macneil moved into joint second with 3½/4 as he defeated Ilya Vorozhtsov, and Sanne de Boer joined him by defeating Robert Alster.
It was the most “violent” round of the tournament so far, with every single game decisive for the first time!
Many thanks to Arbiter Lance Leslie-Smith, for whom this was his final round as arbiter! Adam Raoof will be taking over for the remaining rounds.
| White | Black | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Atulugamage, Saniru Lohan | 1826 | 0 — 1 | Jain, Gautam | 2027 |
| 2 | Macneil, Elliott | 1908 | 1 — 0 | Vorozhtsov, Ilya Art | 1749 |
| 3 | De Boer, Sanne | 1883 | 1 — 0 | Alster, Robert | 1840 |
| 4 | Amior, David | 1986 | 0 — 1 | Bhaduri, Aviraj | 1764 |
| 5 | Napolitano, Domenico | 1852 | 1 — 0 | Medworth, Andrew | 1762 |
| 6 | Murphy, Nick | 1724 | 0 — 1 | Funk, Alexander | 1777 |
| 7 | Nilim, Armaan | 1768 | 0 — 1 | Garcia, Tom | 1641 |
| 8 | Paulins, Michael | 1830 | 1 — 0 | Ben-Eshak, Djad | 1682 |
| 9 | Epstein-Lightman, Yishai | 1801 | 1 — 0 | Bansal, Rineesh | 1608 |
| 10 | O'Gorman, Brendan | 1721 | 1 — 0 | Piccininno, Alessandro | 1539 |
| 11 | Kollias, Vasileios | 1709 | 1 — 0 | De Boer, Lara | 1461 |
| 12 | Hulstrom, Tony | 1358 | 0 — 1 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1975 |
| 13 | Kuzmich, Alexander | 0 | 0 — 1 | Hill, Callum | 1700 |
| 14 | Kapur, Gul | 1692 | 0 — 1 | Green, Alfie | 1606 |
| 15 | Pride, Stephen C | 1656 | 1 — 0 | Upreti, Arjun | 1430 |
| 16 | Pepe, Salvatore | 1631 | 1 — 0 | Goulbourne, Nick | 1526 |
| 17 | Abraham, Abe | 1200 | 1 — 0 | Smith, Peter | 0 |
| 18 | Pollack, Maximo | 1524 | 1 — 0 | Wong, Damian Anthony | 1518 |