Oct 1: Top seed Ketan Boricha continued to lead a field of 132 with eight points after nine rounds in the 8th Pre-Rating Chess Tournament organised by the Bombay Chess Association at the Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Canteen today.In the penultimate round match, Boricha agreed to a quick draw with G Balaji.In fact, all the top three boards settled for quick draws and made their position safe for selection for the PK Prabhudesai Fide-rating international event. All they need is another draw in the final round.In the second position, one point adrift of Boricha, were Aashish Thatte, Prakash Date, Rohit Rana, Saumil Desai, Balaji, Sanjay Modi, Anant Chavan and Girish Chandnani.RESULTS (9th round): Ketan Boricha (8) drew with G Balaji (7); Aashish Thatte (7) drew with Prakash Date (7); Rohit Rana (7) drew with Saumil Desai (7); Anand Raman lost to Sanjay Modi (7); DK Desai lost to Anant Chavan (7); Girish Chandanani (7) bt Ramesh Khadye (5.5); Mohan Naik (6.5) bt KJ Mehta (5.5); Shirish Kumar (6) drew with Subhash Honmurgi (6); Paresh Gandhi (5.5) lost to Anil Bahuliyar (6.5); Nitin Nawar (6.5) bt Vinayak Dewal (5.5); Saurabh Barve (6.5) bt NS Subramaniam (5.5); Sameer Chavan drew with DR Sahiar (6); AN Iyer (6.5) bt S Kartik (5.5); Prakash Patole (5.5) drew with Chaitanya Vaidya (5.5); Prashant Boricha (6) bt Abhijit Bhurke (5); Santosh Raut (6) bt NS Havanur (5).
