Rajesh has thus opened up a one-point lead over A R Belwalkar who trails with 6.5 points. Playing on the top board, Rajesh (white) executed the King's pawn opening which was countered by Amruta who opted for the Sicilian defence.

On the second board, ninth seeded Belwalkar started with the C4-English opening while top seeded Pranav equalised with some clever moves early in the game to maintain a draw but later lost the game due to lack of attacking prowess.

Results
Rajesh Sapkal (7.5) Mokal Amruta (6); AR Belwalkar (6.5) bt Pranav Akolkar (6); Utpal Sasane (6.5) Gohad Sandeep (5.5); Snehal Mahajan (5) Abhijit Joshi (6); U K Sahastrabuddhe (6) Ravi Behere (5); M Pate (5.5) with Mihir Naniwdekar (5.5); Anil Kulkarni (5) A Sarpotdar (4.5); Mandar Sane (5.5) Sachin Barve (4.5); T Rajphatak (4.5) Sachin Sayle (5.5); Satish Chavan (5.5) K Kodre (4.5); Prasanna Borse (5.5) Pramod Shinde (4.5); K Nadig (5) bt Patwardhan Kaustubh (4); Santosh Ghotane (5) Devangi Patankar (4); Datta Ramdas (4.5) Tejas Deshmukh (4.5); Sohan Phadke (5) Vijay Pimpalkhare (4); Swapnil Dhisale (4) to CJ Tikekar (5); Milind Ashtaputre (5) Dhande Girish (4); Abhay Kadekar ((5) Sachin Jagtap (4); K Agashe (4) lost to Chaitanya Shivde (4.5).