Indian prodigy, 14-year-old FIDE Master V R Aravindh Chithambaram shared the second spot with fellow Indian GM Vishnu Prasanna at 6.5 points.
In upsets of the day, top seed GM Popov Ivan of Russia went down to GM Vishnu Prasanna (India), while IM Swayams Mishra (India) stunned GM Babujian Levon (Armenia).
Important Results (Round 8) : (Indians unless specified): Aravindh Chithambaram (6.5) drew with Mozharov Mikhail (Rus) 7, V Vishnu Prasanna (6.5) bt Popov Ivan (Rus) 5.5, Rishi Sardana (Aus) 5 lost to M R Lalith Babu (6), Swayams Mishra (6) bt Babujian Levon (Arm) 5, Papin Vasily (Rus) 5.5 drew with Neverov Valeriy (Ukr) 5.5, Ter-Sahakyan Samvel (Arm) 5.5 bt S Ravi Teja (5), Gagare Shardul (4.5) lost to Borovikov Vladislav (Ukr) 5.5, Sethuraman S P (5.5) bt Narayanan Srinath (4.5), Aditya Udeshi (4.5) lost to M Shyam Sundar (5.5).