Grandmaster and former National champion B Adhiban continued with his winning ways by defeating compatriot G N Gopal in the third round of 13th Asian Continental Chess championship here today.
Showing precision with his clock ticking away, Adhiban had to sweat it out for long before his three pieces came good against Gopal's lone queen on the board and the Indian registered his third victory in as many games coming after 93 moves.
It turned out to be a bad day for the highest rated Indian Krishnan Sasikiran in the fray as he went down fighting against Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran. With six rounds still to come, Sasikiran will have some catching up to do in the championship as he is 1.5 points behind leaders.
On the brighter side, it was recovery time for Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi and Abhijeet Gupta. For Negi, the first victory in the event after two draws came at the expense of Munkhgal Gombosuren of Mongolia while Kyrgyztan's Asyl Abdyjapar proved no match for the wily Gupta.
Adhiban shares the lead with world junior champion Yu Yangyi of China, who put it across local boy A R Salem Saleh to maintain a clean slate, and Maghami.
As many a four players - Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh, Chinese duo of Bu Xiangzhi and Wen Yang and former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan share the fourth spot on 2.5 points apiece.
Not far behind are Indians -- Grandmasters Negi, Gupta, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Vidit Gujrathi, Abhijit Kunte S P Sethuraman, V VIshnu Prasanna M Shyam Sundar and Gopal who all are in the pack of players with two points apiece.
In the women's championship, the Indian prospects suffered a heavy blow as International Master Tania Sachdev missed out on a winning position and lost to Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam. The Indian remained on 1.5 points in this section.
