Commonwealth champion Dibyendu Barua of West Bengal and Surya Shekhar Ganguly of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board recorded comfortable victories to emerge joint leaders after the third round in the 41st National 'A' Chess championship in Kozikhode on Friday.
Barua outwitted Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna while International Master Sriram Jha had no answer to Ganguly's onslaught on a day which saw a spate of short draws.
Grandmasters Barua and Ganguly now have 2.5 points and are followed closely by as many as seven players, including GM Pravin Thipsay, Sandipan Chanda, GM Koneru Humpy, double GM norm holder Tejas Bakre, Vishal Sareen, Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury and S Vikramjit Singh, with two points each.
Harikrishna, who had lost to Chowdhary in the earlier round, is languishing at the bottom of the table with just half a point.
Barua, who had also beaten Harikrishna en route to his title triumph in the Tata International Open in October, appeared well armed in the Sveshnikov Sicilian that prompted his opponent to deviate from well-analysed systems in the Sicilian Sveshnikov.
But with Harikrishna coming back into the game by the 26th move, Barua hung on looking for a breakthrough and was rewarded 10 moves later as Hari erred decisively to get his king caught in a mating net.
Barua spotted the sequence of moves that forced Hari to part with a piece and the rest was easy. The game lasted 60 moves.
Of the three decisive games of this round, Ganguly played the best game of the day outclassing LIC's Jha, who played the black side of a Sicilian defence.
For Jha, the opening itself proved a bad choice as Ganguly seized some advantage through his better placed pieces.
Forcing Jha's king to remain in the centre, Ganguly fired one salvo after another and eventually sacrificed his rook for a Bishop to get the decisive attack. The game lasted 43 moves.
The other victor was S Vikramjit Singh, who defeated IM Roktim Bandhopadhyay of West Bengal in a Bogo Indian defence game.
Playing white, Singh conceded a level position fairly easily to Bandhopadhyay but the later fell under time pressure and lost a pawn quite inexplicably. The ensuing endgame was child's play and the former wrapped the issue in just 33 moves.
The spate of short draws continued in this round too. The Airlines' duo of S Satyapragyan and Tejas Bakre skittled out just 10 moves before signing peace.
Thipsay also played a 14-move draw against T S Ravi while GM R B Ramesh and Humpy played a little longer for 17 moves before sharing points.
Results round 3: Dibyendu Barua (2.5) beat P Harikrishna (0.5); Sandipan Chanda (2) drew Abhijit Kunte (1.5); S Vikramjit Singh (2) beat Roktim Bandhodhpay (0.5); S Kidambi (1) drew Prathamesh Mokal (1.5); S S Ganguly (2.5) beat Sriram Jha (0.5); R B Ramesh (2) drew Koneru Humpy (2); Vishal Sareen (2) drew V Hariharan (1); M R Venkatesh (1.5) drew Suvrajit Saha (1); Srinivasa Rao (0.5) drew Arghyadip Das (1); T S Ravi (1.5) drew Praveen Thipsay (2); S Satyapragyan (1.5) drew Tejas Bakre (2); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhary (2) drew Neelotpal Das (1.5).
