Venkatesh takes sole lead

It was a memorable day for unfancied Anurag Mhamal of Goa as he outsmarted second seed, S P Sethuraman of PSPB in a Slav defence with the black pieces in 36 moves.

Venkatesh is followed by three players -- Deep Sengupta, Swapnil Dhopade and P Karthikeyan -- on five points.

Venkatesh, playing black, against Deepan Chakravarthy, won the exchange in a King's Indian defence after which he had little difficulty in converting his material advantage into a win.

City-based GM Deep Sengupta representing PSPB jumped into the second spot with an impressive victory against GM G N Gopal in a French Tarrasch.

Deep created a passed pawn on the b-file which he later converted into a queen and created a mating net around Gopal