Sasikiran (3.5 points), who had taken sole lead after three rounds, was again joined at the top by Laylo Darwin of The Philippines who beat Bangladesh's Enamul Hossain (2).

National `A' champion Sasikiran drew his game against Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran after a three hour long battle.

Bakre (2.5), who is struggling with his form, had an easy win against an unrated Vietnam player Nguyen Tran Quang Mih in a game of Catalan opening. Both were equal till the middle game, but Bakre, playing black, struck the vital blow claiming two pawns. The Vietnamese resigned after 44 moves.

Subburaman Vijayalakshmi played an unusual opening -- queen pawn -- andseemed clearly down in the middle-game. But, she was helped by an erratic opponent, Nguyen Thi Dung which saw the former emerge on the winning side in the rook pawn end-game.

MR Sangeetha (2), after two successive defeats, got her second point, against Su Aun Lee of Malaysia. She defeated Lee in a Sicilian Pelican variation after 45 moves.

Pallavi Shah (3), playing white, defeated Thi Phuong Lienle of Vietnam on a good day for India.

Kolkata on course

NAGPUR: Kolkata (12.5) shot into sole lead at the end of the penultimate round of the Dart Computers 7th National Cities Chess Championship in progress at the VBA Hall here.

Kolkata today drubbed Nagpur City 3.5-0.5 and kept the overnight joint leaders Chennai (11.5) one point away from the top spot. Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Roktim Bandopadhyaya won their respective games, while two other games ended in draws.

Chennai beat Mumbai 2.5-1.5 with two wins and a draw.

Mumbai's Pankaj Joshi played black and scored a splendid victory overPonnuswamy Konguvel in a Sicilian defence game while Rahul Shetty and RB Ramesh (Chennai) played out a draw. Mumbai lost both the other matches with TS Ravi and V Sarvanan upstaging Ketan Boricha and Vikramaditya Kamble, respectively.

Nagpur Chess Academy (10) and Chrompet (10) ended up on the winning side with victories over Kamptee and Vijayawada respectively.

For NCA Sacchidanad Soman, Saurabh Kherdekar and Umesh Panbude, who played for the first time today, scored easy victories over their Kamptee opponents.

IM Anup Deshmukh had no difficulty in beating Chrompet's, BT Muralikrishnan, YS Ebenezer Joseph beat their respective opponents from Vijaywada team, while S Hari Arul got a walkover.

Results (4th round)

Mumbai (8) lost to Chennai (11.5), Kolkata (12.5) beat Nagpur City (6.5), NCA (10) beat Kamptee (3.5), Chrompet (10) beat Vijaywada (2)

Pairings for the fifth round: Kolkata vs Chrompet, Chennai vs Nagpur, Vijaywada vs Mumbai, Nagpur City vs Kamptee.