Saptarshi Roy ponders a move against Neelotpal Das at Gorky Sadan on Saturday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Saptarshi Roy of Bengal moved into the joint lead of the Calcutta Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament at Gorky Sadan on Saturday with 5 points after beating GM Neelotpal Das in the sixth round.

He joined GMs Nguyen Anh Dung, Ziaur Rahman, Viktor Laznicka and Krishnan Sasikiran in the top spot.

On the top board, Dung of The Philippines and Rahman of Bangladesh expectedly decided to play safe — content with retaining their positions at the top — and split the point in 21 moves.

On the second board, Sandipan Chanda, playing white, had a slightly superior position from the opening that transformed from a Sicilian into the advanced French. Sandipan had space advantage on both sides of the board but could not penetrate his opponent’s position.

Saptarshi has now upset two Grandmasters on the trot. After beating Russian GM Vladimir Dobrov from an inferior position on Friday, he outplayed Neelotpal with the white pieces in a Sicilian defence on Saturday. This win has put Saptarshi on course for his maiden GM norm.

After a hesitant start, top seed Sasikiran dispatched world junior champion Adly Ahmed in the exchange variation of the queen’s gambit declined. Sasikiran exploited the weakness on Adly’s kingside to net his opponent’s queen for two rooks.

GM Dibyendu Barua held the upperhand against Iranian GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami in a Sicilian Defence but it was not enough to force a breakthrough and peace was signed on the 29th move.

Arghyadip, another GM-norm aspirant, lost to the lower ranked Debashis Das, denting his chances of a GM norm in this meet. WGM Mary Ann Gomes upset Pakistani IM Mahmood Lodhi to take her tally to 3 points.

TOP BOARD RESULTS

Round VI — Nguyen Anh Dung (5) drew with Ziaur Rahman (5); Sandipan Chanda (4.5) drew with Viktor Laznicka (5); K. Sasikiran (5) bt Adly Ahmed (4); Dibyendu Barua (4.5) drew with Ehshan Ghaem Maghami (4.5); David Alberto (4.5) drew with V. Saravannan (4.5); Saptarshi Roy (5) bt Neelotpal Das (3.5); Rolando Nolte (4.5) bt Smbat Lputian (3.5); Farhat Ali (3.5) lost to Koneru Humpy (4.5); Abdulla Al Rakib (4) drew with Himanshu Sharma (4); Shukrat Safin (4.5) bt M.S. Thejkumar (3.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (4) drew with R.B. Ramesh (4); Tejas Bakre (4.5) bt Sahaj Grover (3.5);; Vladimir Dobrov (4) bt P. Konguvel (3.5); Aswin Jayram (4) bt Somak Palit (3); M.R. Venkatesh (4) bt Udeshi Aditya (3); D.P.Singh (3) lost to S. Kidambi (4); R.R. Laxman (3) lost to J. Ramakrishna (4); Rahul Shetty (3) lost to S.Arun Prasad (4); Sashikant Kutwal (3) lost to Oliver Barbosa (4).