Veteran International Masters K Murugan of Tamil Nadu and Verghese Koshy (Life Insurance Corporation) threw a gauntlet to the younger brigade notching impressive victories to be among the leaders. While Murugan upstaged overnight joint leader Maharashtra champion Sacchidanand Soman (6), Koshy downed International Woman Master Swati Ghate (5.5) in Sicilian Defence.

National junior champion SR Kidambi staked his claim by shocking IM Ponnuswamy Konguvel of PSCB (5.5) in 57 moves to join the leaders. Overnight leaders Sandipan Chanda (6.5) and P Harikrishna (6.5) drew their game after 42 moves which saw them extend their reign at the top. Others sharing the lead were IMRavi Hegde, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, TS Ravi and Shriram Jha after scoring a point each in the eight round. Keeping the leaders on their toes are ten players -- Soman, RB Ramesh, Neelotpal Das, Lanka Ravi, Atanu Lahiri, TV Karthikeyan, Anup Deshmukh, Dipanjan Das, Rahul Shetty and Sekhar Sahu (all on 6 points each).

Important Results

P Harikrishna (6.5) drew with Sandipan Chanda (6.5), K Murugan (6.5) bt S Soman (6), P Konguvel (5.5) lost to SR Kidambi (6.5), R Hegde (6.5) bt DK Sharma (5.5), Swati Ghate (5.5) lost to V Koshy (6.5), TS Ravi (6.5) bt R Kashelkar (5.5), SL Imocha (5.5) lost to SS Ganguli (6.5), V Hariharan (5.5) drew with S Vijayalakshmi (5.5), Himanshu Sharma (5.5) lost to Shriram Jha (6.5).