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The 360 ONE Global Chess Festival saw mixed results in Round 8 as leaders were held or upset across categories. In Masters, Iniyan Pa drew Harsh Suresh but still leads by a point. Madhvendra Pratap Sharma leads Junior Masters after another win. In Challengers, Viresh Sharnarthi fell after a shock loss, while Nithin Babu and others share the lead. Final-round battles will decide all titles.

Mumbai: IM Harsh Suresh held leader, GM Iniyan Pa to a draw in the 8th but this may be just a temporary setback, as the National champion still leads the rest of the field by a point and needs only a draw in the final round to emerge champion in the Master's Section of the 360 ONE Global Chess Festival, being played at the World Trade Centre.

Challengers standings shake-up
Favourites fumbled and stumbled in the other two categories too. Overnight sole leader Viresh Sharnarthi who was on a roll in the Challengers Category was shocked by lower rated Ashirwad Swain of Orissa and dropped down to third place with 6 others, all having scored 6.5 points. Nithin Babu also stunned higher rated FM Arun Kataria, with both jointly leading this Category with 7 points each.

Iniyan with 7 holds on to a full point lead over next placed Boris Savchenko. Harsh Suresh, Aakash Sharadchandra Dalvi, Apoorv Kamble and Ajay Santosh Parvathareddy are bunched behind with 5.5 points each.

Junior Masters and qualification stakes
Madhvendra Pratap Sharma continued his dominance by defeating Vinayak Koleru to retain his one point lead having tallied 7.5 points. A draw in the last 9th round is all he needs to be a clear-cut winner of the Junior Masters. Ankit Das, Balanandan Ayappan and A Amanlal have all scored 6.5 points and have a mathematical chance in case they win their games and Madhvendra ends on the losing side.