Grandmaster Koneru Humpy maintained her position as joint leader after holding Sriram Jha to a draw in the 12th and penultimate round of the 41st National 'B' chess championship in Nagpur on Thursday.

Humpy took her points tally to 9.5 to assure herself a berth in the National 'A' championship.

Sriram Jha and R B Ramesh joined Humpy at the top of the table in the field of 304 players and the duo are also assured of selection for the National 'A' meet irrespective of the last round results.

With 10 berths still to be won, the final round on Friday is likely to witness intense battles with several players striving hard to touch the magical figure of 9.5 points.

S Satyapragyan, Saptarshi Roy, M Srinivasa Rao and Vishal Sareen enhanced their qualifying prospects by scoring over their respective rivals. They beat K Vishweswaran, Rahul Shetty, B S Shivanandan and S Arun Prasad respectively to share the joint 4th place with 9 points apiece along with Suvrajit Saha and M R Venkatesh.

Though a draw in the last round should be sufficient for these players to secure qualification, it will be the progressive score which will have the final say.

Roktim Bandopadhyay, Vikramjit Singh, Prathamesh Mokal, Himanshu Sharma, Arghaydip Das, Vikramaditya Kamble, P D S Girinath, G B Joshi and V. Hariharan are also in contention for a berth in the National 'A' with 8.5 points each and go into the final round with a must-win situation to entertain any hopes of qualification.