On the tenth and penultimate round today, the 17-year-old Goodricke Chess Academy player refused a draw offer from Sanjay on the 16th move. Sanjay was a pawn down and faced time pressure.

Neelotpal, however, played a dubious move later forcing the exchange of queens which lead to equalising of positions. The second draw offer by Sanjay was accepted after 23 moves.

Neelotpal has better progressive score and even a loss tomorrow will give him the title. The fight for the second position and the prize money of Rs 36,000 is among Sanjay, P Harikrishna and TS Ravi.

Harikrishna made a good comeback after his defeats in the fourth and sixth rounds. Today he won against second seed Sandipan Chanda on the second board with black pieces. Having a double bishop advantagefrom white's 11th-move mistake (Ng5), Harikrishna forced Chanda to give a pawn and a bishop.Harikrishna later won two pieces for the queen and slowly but carefully built up an attack on white's King side. Chanda resigned after 66 moves.Ravi defeated Shankar Roy in the Caro Kann game which later transposed into the Nimzo Indian defence. Ravi was in time trouble, but got away with it when Roy faced a mating attack and was forced to give up his queen. He resign on the 45th move.

GB Joshi, Lanka Ravi and Sriram Jha are third with 7.5 points, while S Vijayalakshmi, top seed RB Ramesh, CS Gokhale, S Satyapragyan, Amardeep Bartakke, Vishal Sareen, Rahul Shetty, Chanda and Shankar Roy are in the fourth place with seven points.

Vijayalakshmi held Ramesh on the sixth board, in the Queen's Gambit decline variation. GB Joshi and Lanka Ravi also drew their game on the third board after 22 moves, while Sriram Jha defeated CJ Arvind on the eighth board.

RESULTS (ROUND 10)

N Sanjay (I-T) 8 drew with NeelotpalDas (GCA) 9; Sandipan Chanda (GCA) 7 lost to P Harikrishna (AP) 8; GB Joshi (IAL) 7.5 drew with Lanka Ravi (ONGC) 7.5; TS Ravi (IOC) 8 bt Shankar Roy (E Rlys) 7; IWM S Vijayalakshmi (IAL) 7 drew with IM RB Ramesh (IOC) 7; CS Gokhale (IAL) 7 drew with S Satyapragyan (Ori) 7; CJ Arvind (TN) 6.5 lost to Sriram Jha (LIC) 7.5; SK Rathod (MP) 6.5 drew with S Soman (Mah) 6.5; Amardeep Bartakke (Mah) 7 bt Anup Deshmukh (LIC) 6; Swati Ghate (Mah) 6 lost to Vishal Sareen (LIC) 7; IWM Nisha Mohota (WB) lost to Rahul Shetty (IAL) 7.