Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran emerged the sole leader while overnight joint leader Dibyendu Barua suffered his second defeat in the ninth round of the 40th National 'A' chess championship in Mumbai on Thursday.
Sasikiran (7 points) and Barua shared the top position at the end of eighth round late last night. However, in the ninth round today, Barua slipped to third position, with 6 points, after he was beaten by IM Lanka Ravi.
GM Abhijit Kunte, who defeated IM S Kidambi, closely follows Sasikiran, with 6.5 points.
In the women's section, WIM Aarthie Ramaswamy maintained her overnight lead with 5 points from six rounds.
In the game of Cambridge Spring opening, Lanka Ravi, with white pieces, defeated Barua in 43 moves to score a full point.
Barua lost his pawn on the 23rd move and later tried to recover it but could not succeed in doing so.
Later Ravi capitalised on the situation and with correct play won the game.
On the other board, Sasikiran maintained his winning streak with a crushing victory over debutant Arvind Shastry.
Shastry could not handle the attack on his king on the queen side and succumbed to Sasi's flawless masterplay.
The in-form GM Abhijit Kunte, however, continued his steady progress by defeating IM S Kidambi in 52 moves to move on the second position with 6.5 points.
In the women's section, overnight sole leader WIM Aarthie Ramaswamy maintained her position after beating Krutika Nadig in the sixth round to take her tally to five points.
However, the upset of the day was the defeat of WIM S. Meenakshi at the hands of young Eesha Karvade. Eesha displayed excellent endgame skills and did not let Meenakshi take control of the game. Eesha tightened her grip on the game to win it after 78 moves.
WGM S Vijayalakshmi, who has had a bad tournament so far, managed to earn a full point by beating Tania Sachdev in 48 moves.
Vijayalakshmi has 3.5 points from six rounds.
Results:
Men's (Round 9): M R Venkatesh (5) beat Tejas Bakre (4); Arvind Shastry (3.5) lost to K Sasikiran (7); V Sarvanan (3) drew with Praveen Thipsay (3.5); Abhijit Kunte (6.5) bt S Kidambi (4); R B Ramesh (4.5) bt S Soman (3.5); Saptarshi Roy (4.5) drew with S Satyapragyan (3); Neelotpal Das (5) drew with Sriram Jha (2.5); P Mokal (2.5) drew with Suvrajit Saha (3.5); S S Ganguly (4.5) lost to G B Prakash (4); Lanka Ravi (5) bt Dibyendu Barua (6).
Women's (Round 6): Tania Sachdev (3) lost to S Vijayalakshmi (3.5); Eesha Karvade (3.5) bt S Meenakshi (2); Y Pratibha (3) drew with J E Kavitha (2); Krutika Nadig (0.5) lost to Aarthie Ramaswamy (5); Swati Ghate (2.5) bt Sai Meera (1.5); Nisha Mohota (4) drew with D Harika (4).