Girinath joins leaders

Hyderabad, Dec 12: Overnight joint leaders and International Masters P Mitrakant and DV Prasad suffered a reversal in their fortunes in the eighth round of the second Global Trust Bank All-India Fide-rated chess tournament here today.

Mitrakant fell to PDS Girinath and Prasad was fortunate to escape with a draw against an aggressive Neelotpal Das. These two results helped four others — Girinath, Sudhakar Babu, Jayant Gokhale and Sekhar Sahu — to catapult themselves into the lead. All the four, who were half a point behind in second place yesterday.