They are third seed Shirishkumar, Ramesh Khadge of Bank of India, Anant Chavan, Nitin Warde, entrants division and inter-school champion Niharika Thakkar, Rajababu Gajangi of Kirti College, Mohan Naik, N Robinson, Pramod Kumar, Shakil Ansari, KJ Mehta, schoolboy Akash Khalwadekar and Cyrus Irani.

Ten-year-old Niharika used her usual attacking style in an Italian game against former blind national champion Swapnil Shah. She sacrificed a pawn and broke open the black castle, and then created a passer on the E file. With Swapnil's king threatened by white queen and rook, he resigned.On the top board, Shirishkumar sacrificed a knight on the 17th move, regained his pieces with two pawns and won easily in 43 moves.