Lanka Ravi, playing his favourite Caro-Kann Defence was baffled by Barua's castling on the queen side. Barua later confessed to his lack of theoritical knowledge for the particular variation and played scintillating chess with total control of board. By the 19th move, Ravi's King was still standing on the original square, forcing him to part with the queen.

Ravi merely prolonged the inevitable to 45 moves before conceding defeat.V Saravanan, after a lucky victory over Shanker Roy, was the sole occupant of the second spot with six points.

Closely following him in the third spot were Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, who was surprising held to a draw by Vishal Sareen, K Murugan and Krishnan Sasikiran with 5.5 points each.

RESULTS

Eighth round: Abhijit Kunte(Indian Oil) 5 drew with Neelotpal Das (Goodricke Chess Academy) 4.5, K Sasikaran (Indian Oil) 5.5 bt Varughese Koshy (2.5), K Murugan (5.5) bt Ravi Hegde (Bank Sports Board) 4.5, DV Prasad (Indian Oil) 3.5 lost to Suvrajit Saha (5), V Sarvanan (6) bt Shankar Roy (Railways) 3, Vishal Sareen (LIC) 4 drew with Pravin Thipsay (Union Bank) 5.5, Ponnuswamy Konguvel (5) bt Anup Deshmukh (LIC) 4, Dibyendu Barua (Tisco) 6.5 bt Lanka Ravi (4.5).