Chakravarthy holds Ganguly

Former Asian junior champion Deepan Chakravarthy of Tamil Nadu secured his third and final norm after an exciting draw with defending champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the 10th round of the 43rd National 'A' chess championship in Vishakhapatnam on Monday.

On a day when Koneru Humpy bounced back into the joint lead with Ganguly and Chakravarthy at the top of the tables, Jharkhand's D P Singh ensured himself an 11-game norm after holding International Master M R Venkatesh to a draw while youngest participant Abhijeet Gupta impressed with a hard earned victory over GM R B Ramesh.

As things stand at the half way stage of this 21-players event, Humpy, Ganguly and Chakravarthy have all got 7.5 points in their bag but the wily Andhra girl has an extra game in hand as she has already got a bye.

D P Singh is next in line having 6.5 points while M R Venkatesh is following him closely on six points. On joint sixth spot is former national champion GM Abhijit Kunte, S Kidambi and Sapatarshi Roy Chowdhury who all have 5.5 points each.

In the women's championship being organised simultaneously, Woman Grandmaster Swati Ghate stretched her lead to a whopping 1.5 points after disposing the challenge of Orissa's Kiran Manisha Mohanty.

The Pune-based took her tally to a very impressive seven points out of a possible nine here and is now trailed by top seed International Master S Vijayalakshmi, S Meenakshi and local hopeful D Harika who all have 5.5 points each.

The Women's championship is a 17-players event and each participant will get 16 games.