JOIN USRussain GM Turov, eight other Grandmasters and Indian IM B Adhiban shared the second place with seven points each.Local WIM Padmini Rout stole the show during the day when she stunned Hungarian GM Zoltan Varga to become the second WGM of Orissa after Kiran Manisha Mohanty.
Padmini capitalised on a rook-knight exchange to clinch a victory and her third WGM norm after 32 moves. She had got first norm at Asian Junior Championship in Colombo in July, 2009 and the second at GM tournament in Hungary in January, 2010.Delhi school boy Vaibhav Suri emerged as another star of the day when he shocked Bangladesh GM Enamul Hossain to secure his first GM norm. He also became an IM, getting his third and final norm in the process.
Two Fide Masters - GV Sai Krishna (India) and Abu Sufian Shakil (Bangladesh) - too gained IM norms. Andhra youngster Sai Krishna outwitted Brazil GM Alexandr Fier to advance to combine third place with 6.5 points.
Two more GMs suffered upsets in the ninth round with Neelotpal Das (India) going down to FM Akshat Khamparia and Sergey Vokarev (Russia) losing to Bitan Banerj
Among leading Orissa players, IM Swayangsu Satyapragyan and Swayams Mishra progressed to combined third place, holding Abu Sufian Shakil and GM Anuar Ismagambetov respectively to draws.Utkal Ranjan Sahoo fetched added joy for Orissa, forcing Uzbek GM Marat Dzhumaev to a draw.
Top board results (Round 9): Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr,7) drew with Pavel Maletin (Rus,7), Alexey Dreev (Rus,7) bt Sriram Jha (Ind,6), Anton Kovalyov (Arg,7) bt P Karthikeyan (Ind,6), Dmitry Kokarev (Rus,7) bt Gevorg Harutjunyan (Arm,6), Evgeny Vorobiov (Rus,6.5) drew with Sergey Kasparov (Blr,6.5), Dmitry Bocharov (Rus,7) bt MR Lalith Babu (Ind,6), Pablo Lafuente (Arg,7) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (Ind,6), Hera Imre Jr (Hun,7) bt Arjun Tiwari (Ind,6), Ponnuswamy Konguvel (Ind, 6.5) drew with Simonian Hrair (Arm,6.5), B Adhiban (Ind,7) bt K Rathnakaran (Ind,6), Thomas Luther (Ger,6.5) bt Vikramaditya Kamble (Ind,5.5), Swayams Mishra (Ind,Ori,6) drew with Anuar Ismagambetov (Kaz,6), Nurlan Ibrayev (Kaz,6.5) bt Sundararajan Kidambi (Ind,5.5), Vaibhav Suri (Ind,6.5) bt Enamul Hossain (Ban,5.5), Attila Czebe (Hun6.5) bt Ticia Gara (Hun,5.5), Swayangsu Satyapragyan (Ind,Ori,6) drew with Abu Sufian Shakil (Ban,6), Shreyansh Daklia (Ind,6.5) bt Ashwin Jayaram (Ind,5.5), Ramnath Bhuvanesh (Ind,6.5) bt Neelotpal Das (Ind,5.5), GV Sai Krishna (Ind,6.5) bt Alexandr Fier (Bra,5), Rustam Khusnutdinov (Kaz,6) bt V Vishnu Prasanna (Ind,5), Abhishek Das (Ind,5.5) drew with Roman Ovetchkin (Rus,5.5), Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb,6) bt Prasanna Rao (Ind,5), Bitan Banerjee (Ind,6) bt Sergey Vokarev (Rus,5), Padmini Rout (Ind,Ori,6) bt Zolatan Varga (Hun,5).