Action during Day Four of the chess tournament in Jamshedpur on Thursday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Aug. 4: Vipal Subhashi of Bihar and Jadala Mallesawara Rao of Andhra Pradesh finished as joint leaders on the point table today at the end of Day Four of the All India Open Rating Chess Championship that is being played at Agrasen Bhavan in Sakchi.

However, the duo were only half-a-point ahead of a clutch of seven players who were tailing the leaders with five points each at the end of the sixth round.

While Subhashi defeated Punjab’s Raj Kamal Sandhu to make it to the top, Mallesawara Rao prevailed over Praful Mehta (Gujarat) to finish first.

The lead notwithstanding, both Subhashi and Rao will face a stiff competition from the second-ranked players, who seem to be in fine form, when play resumes tomorrow. The competition, which has a whopping Rs 5 lakh as prize money, still has five rounds to be played out before crowning the champion.

The home players too had a relatively good day with eight contestants posting wins and earning a point each. While Ankit Kumar Singh beat J.K. Jawahar of Bihar, Jagannath Sharma tripped Bengal's Subhendu Guha.

In other round six ties Aayush Agarwal and S.N. Pathak posted wins over P. Valsaranjan (Kerala) and Kashyap Tiwary (Rajasthan), respectively even as Pappu Kumar Saw came better against Orissa's Tarun Shankar Tripathy.

The group of players who finished second today are Hari Om Sharma (UP), Harish Sharma (Delhi), Md Rafiq Khan (UP), Manas Ranjan Parida (Orissa), Abhishek Jaiswal (UP) and Abid Ali (UP), M.K. Alaguraja (Tamil Nadu) and Chandra Pal (Delhi).

Om Sharma, who along with Subhashi, Rao, Sandhu, Abid Ali and Y.P. Srivastava had been at pole position earlier, however, had to sign truce with Harish Sharma today while Khan defeated Srivastava.

The home players too had a relatively good day with eight contestants posting wins and earning a point each. While Ankit Kumar Singh beat J.K. Jawahar of Bihar, Jagannath Sharma tripped Bengal's Subhendu Guha. In other round six ties Aayush Agarwal and S.N. Pathak posted wins over P. Valsaranjan (Kerala) and Kashyap Tiwary (Rajasthan), respectively even as Pappu Kumar Saw came better against Orissa's Tarun Shankar Tripathy.

Madhuri Kumari, Ravi Kumar Sharma and Deepak Lal from Jharkhand also emerged victors. Madhuri posted her first win of the championship by outplaying statemate Sayanto Rao, while Sharma beat Rahul Prakash Gautam of UP. Lal defeated Rohit Kumar of UP.