Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran could not pose any problems to Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland and the game was drawn without much ado while the former world junior champion Abhijeet was unfortunate not to score a full point against Evgeny Alekseev of Russia.
With just one round to come, Korobov emerged as the sole leader on 5.5 points and Alekseev remained on his toes a half point behind. Sasikiran and Wojtaszek share the third spot on 4.5 points apiece while Abhijeet inched himself up to four points, a half point more than Negi.
For the first time in this tournament, Korobov came up with an early opening surprise going for the King pawn advance on move one. Negi went for his pet Sicilian Najdorf but the Ukrainian had prepared some dangerous lines.
To his credit, Negi came out of the opening unscathed and was able to manage things with a timely pawn sacrifice breaking the center open. However the Indian went wrong in wild complexities with the clock ticking away and Korobov grabbed the full point after gaining three pieces for his queen. More