Top seeded Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran of Tamil Nadu crushed unseeded International Master G B Prakash of Tamil Nadu to retain the National 'A' chess title with a round to spare, on the penultimate day of the 40th National chess championship, in Mumbai, on Thursday.
In the 28th women's National 'A' event, Women's International Master and third seed R Aarthie of Tamil Nadu beat her statemate and unseeded J E Kavita in the 12th round lead the field with 8.5 points to her credit.
Bengal's WIM Nisha Mohota, who drew her match against her sister, Swati, shared the second spot with S Vijayalakshmi of Tamil Nadu (on eight points each).
Unseeded WIM D Harika of Andhra Pradesh held top seed Woman Grandmaster S Vijayalakshmi to a well-deserved draw to be placed third with 7.5 points.
Second seed GM Pendyala Harikrishna (Andhra Pradesh) was in the second spot with 13 points after he held International Master Lanka Ravi (8.5 points) to a draw.
Third seed GM Abhijit Kunte of Maharashtra drew his match against R Saptarshi of Bengal (9.5) to be placed third with 11.5 points.
Results (men's 19th round): A Kunte (11.5) drew with R Saptarshi (9.5), N Das (10.5) drew with V Saravanan (5), P Mokal (5.5) drew with Arvind Shetty (7), S S Ganguly (10.5) beat M R Venkatesh (10), Lanka Ravi (8.5) drew with P Harikrishna (13), Tejas Bakre (10) beat D Barua (11), K Sasikiran (15.5) beat G B Prakash (8), Pravin Thipsay (10) beat Suvrajit Saha (7), S Kidambi (10) beat Sriram Jha (6.5), S Satyapragyan (7.5) drew with S S Soman (6).
Women's 12th round: Krutika Nadig (3) drew with Eesha Karavade (6), Swati Ghate (7) beat Tania Sachdev (6), Nisha Mohota (8) drew with Swati Mohota (2.5), D Harika drew with S Vijayalakshmi (8), Sai Meera (3.5) beat S Meenakshi (5.5), R Aarthie (8.5) beat J E Kavitha (2).
