Saptarshi Roy is a draw from his maiden IM norm. Picture by Pabitra Das

Calcutta: With three more rounds to go, there?s a neck and neck battle for the top spot between GM Abhijit Kunte of India and top seed, GM Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus in the International Open chess meet organised by Alekhine Chess Club.

Both are well placed on 6.5 points, a point ahead of their nearest rivals, GM Ni Hua of China, Enamul Hossain of Bangladesh and GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran.

Kunte, playing white, beat GM Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh in the eighth round on Sunday.

Hossain went down to Alexandrov with black pieces.

Saptarshi Roy of Goodricke National Chess Academy held the Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahaman to a draw in 40 moves in a Modern defence.

Roy, who is paired against GM Murshed in the ninth round, requires only a draw to earn his maiden IM norm.

GM Sandipan Chanda, meanwhile, had to sweat it out against R.R. Laxman to earn full point. GM Maghami drew against GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly in just four moves, while GM Hua was content to split the point against GM Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam.

RESULTS

Round VIII ? Aleksej Alexandrov (6.5) bt Enamul Hossain (5.5), Abhijit Kunte (6.5) bt Niaz Murshed (5), Dao Thien Hai (5) drew with Ni Hua (5.5), Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (5.5) drew with Surya Sekhar Ganguly (5), Oleg Romanishin (5) drew with Dibyendu Barua (5), Saptarshi Roy (5) drew with Ziaur Rahaman (5), Alexander Fominyh (4.5) drew with Neelotpal Das (5), Nguyen Anh Dung(4) lost to Tejas Bakre (5), Sandipan Chanda (5) bt R.R. Laxman (4), Timur Gareev (5) bt D.V. Prasad (4), Abdulla Al Rakib (4.5) bt bt Somak Palit (3.5), Reefat Bin Sattar (4.5) bt Arindam Mukerjee (3.5), Dinesh Kr Sharma (4.5) bt Rahul Sangma (3.5), Rahul Shetty (3.5) lost to Devraz Chatterjee (4.5), Kh Aminul Islam (3.5) lost to R. Balasubramanium (3.5), Nisha Mohota (4.5) bt Abhishek Das (3), K. Visweswaran (4) bt K. Ramu (2.5), Neeraj Kr Mishra (2.5) lost to Mahtauddin Ahmed (3.5), Sandipan Chatterjee (2.5) lost to Mohammad Javed (3.5), Abhratanu Dutta (2.5) lost to Vinoth Kumar (3.5), Arman Monir (3.5) bt Saheli Nath (2.5), Abu Sufian Sakil (3) bt Ghader Pour Shayesteh (2), Souvik Chakraborty (2) drew with Soumya Thakurta (2.5), Bitan Banerjee (1) lost to Satyajit Kundu (2.5).