Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly of PSPB extended his lead to a full point after opting for a quick draw with teammate S Kidambi in the 10th round of the 41st National 'A' chess championship in Kozikhode on Wednesday.
Ganguly took his tally to 7.5 points out of 10 and is now followed by five players on 6.5 points. They are Grandmaster Koneru Humpy of AP, Sapatarshi Roy Chowdhury of West Bengal and the PSPB trio of GM R B Ramesh, GM Abhijit Kunte and IM Neelotpal Das.
PSPB's Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda is in joint seventh spot on 6 points alongside double GM norm holder Tejas Bakre of Indian Airlines while a pack of four players, led by top seed GM Pendyala Harikrishna and GM Pravin Thipsay, hold the next spot in the standing list on 5.5 points each.
With 13 games still remaining in this marathon event, the battle is likely to heat up in the rounds to come.
It was a day of another upset for Koneru Humpy who lost to Neelotpal Das in a keenly-contested game where the latter played black. Going for the sharp Benko Gambit, Neelotpal had clear intentions of a bloody battle and was rewarded amidst huge complications as Humpy erred to have her queen cornered. Neelotpal made most of his centralized pieces and romped home.
GM Abhijit Kunte demonstrated his positional acumen in crushing tailender M Srinivas Rao, who is struggling to find his rhythm here. Playing white, Abhijit had little trouble in exploiting an erroneous plan by black in the Kings Indian defence and he won a pawn to cruise through.
After completing the formalities of his second IM norm, Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury is now in contention of a GM norm but for that he will need to score some wins. In the 10th round game, Saptirshi held Sriram Jha to a draw with black.
Results round 10: P Harikrishna (5.5) drew Arghyadip Das (3); Suvrajit Saha (5) drew Praveen Thipsay (5.5); V Hariharan (2) lost to Tejas Bakre (6); Koneru Humpy (6.5) lost to Neelotpal Das (6.5); Sriram Jha (4) drew Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (6.5); Prathamesh Mokal (5.5) drew S Satyapragyan (5); Roktim Bandhodhpay (4) beat T S Ravi (3.5); Abhijit Kunte (6.5) beat M Srinivas Rao (1.5); Dibyendu Barua (5) drew M R Venkatesh (5.5); Sandipan Chanda (6) beat Vishal Sareen (4.5); S Vikramjit Singh (3.5) drew R B Ramesh (6.5); S Kidambi (5) drew S S Ganguly (7.5).