Ahmedabad: International Masters Lanka Ravi of PSPB and Bengal’s Suvrajit Saha remained in joint lead after settling for a quick draw amongst themselves in the eighth round of the 44th National B Chess Championships here.

With this result, the two inched themselves up to 7 points out of a possible 8 and are followed by Vikramaditya Kamble of Maharashtra, Somak Palit of Bengal, Valay Parikh of Gujarat, IM Himanshu Sharma of Haryana and Woman Grandmaster D. Harika of Andhra Pradesh, all with 6.5 points in their kitty.

The eighth round did not have much excitement on the top boards as the leaders decided to play it safe. Ravi and Suvrajit signed peace quickly, as did Kamble who shared the point with top seed K. Ratnakaran of Kerala.

Action, however, was visible from the fourth board onwards where IM norm holder Somak accounted for former national champion P. Konguvel of PSPB from the black side of a centre counter defence. The opening did not fetch Konguvel any advantage and luck deserted him in the middlegame when Somak managed a thematic breakthrough.

Winning an exchange, Somak didn’t give any chance in the resulting position.

Harika gave an impressive performance against Swapnil Dhopade of Maharashtra who played the Slav Defence with his black pieces. (PTI)