M R Venkatesh and Sundararajan Kidambi of PSPB, B Adhiban of Tamil Nadu, Prathamesh Mokhal of Maharashtra and Rathnakaran of Railways maintained their lead with nine points in the national ‘B’ chess championship here on Tuesday.
Sixteen others were trailing the overnight leaders by half a point.
Drawn games were the order of the day as only the game on the ninth and 10th tables produced decisive results among the top ten tables.
Udeshi Aditya of Maharashtra employed a Sicilian defence against Ashwin Jayaram and made a few mistakes in the opening. He took time to restore parity. Towards the end, the paucity of time had a telling effect on his game as Udeshi lost on the 59th move.
S P Sethuraman outwitted former world U-18 champion Aarthie Ramaswamy of Indian Airlines, taking advantage of the latter’s mistakes.
Preetham Sharma of Railways and Satharshi Roy of West Bengal have brightened their chances of qualifying.
Important results (round 12): Venkatesh M R (PSPB) drew  Adhiban B (TN); Rathankaran K (Rlys) drew Sundararajan Kidambi (PSPB); Satyapragyan Swayangsu (IA) drew  Prathamesh Sunil Mokal (Mah); Sivanandan B S (Kar) drew  Sriram Jha (LIC); Akshat Khamparia (MP) drew Arun Karthik R (TN); Aswath R (TN) drew Shankar Roy (Rlys); Babu N Sudhakar (BSB) drew Shashikant Kutwai (Rlys); Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (Mah) drew Ravi Thandalam Shanmugam (PSPB); Ashwin Jayaram (TN) bt Udeshi Aditya (Mah); Saptarshi Roy (Rlys) bt Swathi Ghate (LIC); Wajih Nassir (Rlys) drew Roktim Bandyopadhyay (WB); Hegde Ravi Gopal (BSB) drew  Prakash G B (BSB); Sharma R Preetham (Rlys) bt Saravanan V (PSPB); Sethuraman S P (TN) bt Ramaswamy Aarthie (IA); Thejkumar M S (Kar) drew Narayanan Srinath (TN); Mehar Chinna Reddy C H (AP) drew Shetty Rahul (IA); Imocha Laisram (PSPB) bt Abhishek Das (BSB); Lalith Babu M R (AP) bt LAkshmanrao D (AP); Konguvel Ponuswamy (PSPB) bt  Matta Vinay Kumar (BSB); Presenjit Datta (Del) drew Gupta Abhijeet (PSPB); Sanjay N (Kar) bt Ramakrishna J (BSB).