Close on his heels with five points are Pravin Thipsay (Banks Sports Board) and V Saravanan (Petroleum Sports Control Board).

International Masters Abhijit Kunte of PSCB, Ravi Hedge, Krishnan Murugan, Ponnuswamy Konguvel and Krishnan Sasikiran are all in the third spot with 4.5 points each.

Fifteen-year-old Neelotpal Das overreached himself against the French Defence of Barua and landed himself into deep trouble when he was finally two pieces down with no compensation, he resigned after 34 moves.

Saravanan played the Pelican Variation of the Sicilian Defence against the King Pawn opening of Thipsay and proposed the draw after 23 moves, which was immediately accepped by the latter.

It was a Queen's Gambit declined game between Suvarjit Saha of Railways and Murugan of Neyveli LigniteCorporation. Though Murugan had an edge, he blundered in time trouble and lost on the 40th move.

Reigning champion Abhijit Kunte got the better of Varughese Koshy's English opening game in 26 moves to bounce back into contention with a tally of four point five points.

There was also an interesting result when Vishal Sareen was defeated by his teammate from Life Insurance Corporation, Anup Deshmukh.