Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly settled for truce with Alexander Zubov of Ukraine and slipped to joint second position after the conclusion of the sixth round in the World Juniors chess championship in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan.
The last day with two sessions in the boys' event ended with mixed trends for Indians in the 50-player championship that has 13 rounds in all. The lead position however changed with local hope Kadir Guseinov taking the sole first position with 5 points in his kitty.
Half a point adrift of the leader is Ganguly, top seed Shakhriyaz Mamedyarov, Vugar Gashimov (both Azerbaijan), Izoria Zviad (Georgia) and Zubov.
The other Indian kingpin in the fray Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna took his tally to four points after drawing with Jan Werle of Poland and moved to a pack of six players following Ganguly's group.
P Magesh Chandran suffered his second loss in the championship, going down to Vugar Gashimov of Kazakhstan.
National junior champion Abhijit Gupta bounced back after a disastrous loss to teammate S Arun Prasad in the fifth round and accounted for Urfan Sevdimaliev of Azerbaijan. Another winner was Asian under-14 champion G Rohit, who scalped Canadian Wang Hao Yuan.
Arun Prasad took it easy after beating Abhijit and drew his sixth round game with Georgian Levan Pantsulaia to take his tally to 3.5.
In the girls' section, IWM Dronavalli Harika continued to fly high with a smashing victory over Shahna Agaeva of Azerbaijan. Harika took the sole second spot in the standings behind top seed Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia, who recorded her fourth straight victory to remain half a point ahead of the Indian challenge.
Asian junior champion Tania Sachdev drew with Ekaterina Ubiennykh of Russia in a game of fluctuating fortunes that was fought till the last nail.
Ganguly had little to worry about in the sixth round. Playing black against Zubov, Ganguly restored faith in his Queen's Gambit Accepted and got a level position just out of the opening as Zubov chose for a safe set up. After the queen, the minor pieces also got traded at regular intervals and it took just 19 moves for both to realize there was nothing to play for.
