Former age-group champion Baisakhi Das of West Bengal got the better of former sub-junior champion J E Kavitha of TN in 58 moves of Petroff Defence to catch up with Pratibha on points table.

In another interesting battle between under-14 champion Shradha Samani of Maharashtra and her teammate and under-12 champion Eesha Karvade, the former faced the Dutch Defence and used her chances well. Eesha's central pawn push was too hasty and allowed Shradha to get a good bargain of two pieces and a pawn for a rook. She did not stop there and went on to net the Queen as well.

Topboard results

BOYS: Valay Parikh (Guj) 4.5 bt Sujeesh (Ker) 4; Somak Palit (WB) 4 drew with Yashpal Sonwani (MP) 4.5; RakeshAgarwal (Bih) 4 drew with Yambem Singh (Mani) 4; Aditya Vikram (UP) 3 lost to Omkar Patwardhan (Mah) 4; Saptarshi Roy (GNCA) 3.5 drew with Haribalu (T Nagar) 3.5; RS Prasanna (TN) 3.5 drew with R Siddharth (Capa) 3.5; MK Narasimhan (T Nagar) 4 bt Deepan Chakravarthy (TN) 3; Byomakesh Naik (Ori) 3.5 drew with Girija Kumar (AP) 3.5; V Srinivas (Chromepet) 3 lost to R Naveen (Capa) 4; Phoobalan (TN) 3.5 drew with Deep Sen Gupta (Bih) 3; Piyush Roy (Ori) 2.5 lost to Pubesh Anand (TN) 3.5.

Girls: Pratibha (TN) 4.5 bt P Priya (T Nagar) 4; Baisakhi Das (WB) 4.5 bt JE Kavitha (TN) 3.5; Shradha Samani (Mah) 4 bt Eesha Karvande (Mah) 3.5; Malarselvi (TN) 4 bt Priya (Bihar) 3; Amrutha Mokal (Mah) 3 lost to Kruthika Nadig (Mah) 4; Saheli Nath (WB) 4 bt Neenu A George (Ker) 3; Pooja Rashivedekar (Kar) 3 lost to Pannaga Magal (Mah) 4; Nimmy George (Ker) 4 bt Nilavoli (TN) 2.5; Mathuri Patel (Mah) 3.5 bt Ruha Karvande (Mah) 2.5; Aswathy Balagopal (Ker) 2.5 lost to K Preethi (Capa) 3.