Former national champion Dibyendu Barua's bad run continued as he succumbed to his second defeat, in the eighth round of the Parsvnath International Open chess tournament in Delhi on Saturday.
Grandmaster Dmitry Kayumov of Uzbekistan joined Barua in the casualty list in the morning session even as Abhijit Kunte, after a relatively slow start to his campaign, joined top seed Krishnan Sasikiran in the lead.
While Barua was forced to bite the dust by Mehdi Hasan of Bangladesh, K Ratnakaran got the better of Kayumov to take his tally to 6.5 points from a possible eight.
Barua, who suffered his second loss, languishes in joint-fifth place with five points from eight outings -- four wins and two draws and is almost out of the title race.
Former title holder R B Ramesh defeated International Master R R Laxman to move into joint second position with Ratnakaran, IM Saptarshi Roy and N Sanjay of Karnataka with 6.5 points, while GM Alexander Fominyh of Uzbekistan is among the pack of players in third spot with six points each with only three rounds remaining in the 11-round event.
Ratnakaran, who has one GM norm, employed Guico Piano opening with white pieces but despite an unclear middle game gained advantage by sacrificing an exchange on the 39th move.
With a strong king side positioning in the end game Ratnakar pulled off victory in 53 moves.
On the top board, Kunte beat IM Deep Sengupta in an English Attack with black pieces.
Deep paid for his blunders as he overlooked the options created by his superior opponent and lost the match in 30 moves.
Sasikiran, who played white, had to settle for a draw against Enamul Hossain of Bangladesh, who was in a solid position in the Slav Defence opening.
The Super GM was in an advantageous position till the 25th move but Hossain displayed some fine defensive tactics to hold on to his position and sign a truce after 60 moves.
Laxman, who lost his lead to Sasikiran in the previous round, suffered yet another setback at the hands of Ramesh of Indian Oil, in the Ruy Lopez opening.
Ramesh structured the game beautifully from the opening itself and took one pawn in the 26th move and advanced through the rook file.
