The 19-year-old Sasikiran has so far accumulated 12.5 points comprising 11 wins and three draws besides two defeats. More importantly, the teenager is far ahead of his nearest rival Pravin Thipsay, who has logged 11 points so far. Even a defeat for Sasikiran in his last round match on Sunday against GB Prakash (10.5) isn't going to hamper his chances of winning the title.

Thipsay, who bounced back with a reformed strategy in the later stages of the tournament, faced little difficulty in putting it across SK Rathore (5) today in a Ruy Lopez game lasting 44 moves.

IM Abhijit Kunte, who was held to a draw NK Mishra (5.5) had to be content with sharing the third spot withPrakash on 10.5 points each.

IM R B Ramesh (10), after his winning run, went down to IM V Saravanan (9.5).

In the Slav game against Hegde, Sasikiran bagged the `c4' pawn, but the rival did not bother to recover the lost pawn. On the 19th move, Hegde sacrificed an exchange without any compensation. Thereafter, Sasi did not look back and bagged the full point on the 24th move.

Prakash beat Koshy in a game that saw both players adopt various plans. Koshy managed to survive the acute time pressure after the 35th move, but on 41st and 42nd moves he lost two pawns in succession. Prakash won the game in 50 moves.

Scoring one of his brightest victories of the tournament, V Saravanan opened with king pawn against R B Ramesh, who went in for the Sicilian defence. Playing forcefully, Saravanan avoided exchange of queens on the 21st move. Ramesh made a spectacular knight sacrifice for two pawns on his 25th move. But, Saravanan claimed one more pawn and won the game in 37 moves.

The players fighting for theberth in the Indian team get a day's off tomorrow. The key fights in the last round will be -- Sasikiran (12.5) vs GB Prakash (10.5), Tejas Bakre (6) vs PM Thipsay (11), Abhijit Kunte (10.5) vs V Saravanan (9.5), RB Ramesh (10) vs P Konguvel (9) and T S Ravi (7) vs DV Prasad (9.5).

If the players tie on the same score, the Koya system of break will be applied to resolve the tie and decide the placings.

The system, an invention of present secretary of All India Chess Federation (AICF) PT Ummer Koya, decides the final ranking of tied players by considering their score against the players who have scored atleast half the possible number of points. The new system has been officially adopted by International Chess Federation (Fide), as a tie-breaker.

Results (16th round): RG Hegde (6) lost to K Sasikiran (12.5), PM Thipsay (11) bt SK Rathor (5), Abhijit Kunte (10.5) drew with NK Mishra (5.5), GB Prakash (10.5) bt V Koshy (5.5), V Saravanan (9.5) bt RB Ramesh (10), DV Prasad (9.5) bt Suvrajit Saha(6.5), P Konguvel (9) drew with Neelotpal Das (7.5), Anup Deshmukh (6.5) drew with TS Ravi (7), Shankar Roy (5.5) bt Tejas Bakre (6).