Grand Master Ziaur Rahman and Indian International Master Himanshu Sharma won their respective fifth round matches to jointly lead the table of the 8th United Insurance & United Leasing International Masters Chess tournament yesterday.
Zia beat Joydeep Dutta of India and Himanshu beat FIDE Master Taibur Rahman at the federation hall-room to improve their tally to four points each.
FM Abu Sufian Shakil, FM Mehdi Hasan Parag, FM Minhazuddin Ahmed Sagar, Imran Ali Elin, IM Mahmood Lodhi of Pakistan and IM Dinesh Kumar Sharma of India followed the leaders with 3.5 points each.
In the other fifth round games, Sagar drew with Shakil, Lodhi drew with Dinesh, Elin beat Bitan Banerjee of India, Parag beat Debaraj Chatterjee, Saif Uddin Lavlu beat FM Rezaul Haque, IM Shahzad Mirza of Pakistan beat Anichuzzaman Jewel, Keshav Shrestha of Nepal drew with Shresta Bilam Lal of Nepal, Delwar Hossain beat Hasan Emam, Sheikh Nasir Ahmed beat Mohammed Abdul Malek, FM Mohammad Javed beat Monir Hissain, Mohammad Ali drew with Abdullah Al Saif, Sohel Chowdhury drew with Arman Monir and Badri Nepali beat Mahtabuddin Ahmed Robin.