Russian grandmaster Maxim Turov enhanced his lead by a full point over IM M.R. Lalith Babu of A.P., Vikramaditya Kamble of Railways, Rinat Jumabayev of Kazakhstan and Ziaur Rahman of Bangladsh in the LIC & ONGC sponsored Chennai Open 2010 International chess tournament organized by Sports Promotion Foundation today. At the end of the ninth round, Maxim has scored 8.5 points, an amazing run in such a kind of tournament. The notable feature of the ninth round is that R. Siddharth of Tamil Nadu achieved his maiden GM norm and six other Indians - P. Shyam Nikil of Tamil Nadu, Anwesh Upadyaya and Swayams Mishra of Orissa, Vaibhav Suri of Delhi and Fenil Shah and Ankit Rajpara of Gujarat secured IM norms.

Maxim played a solid game again using his favourite Caro Kann defence against Marat Dzhimaev of Uzbekistan. His pawn capture using the rook on two consecutive moves (33 and 34) sealed the game in his favour. The hitherto unbeaten Anwesh Upadyaya met his waterloo at the hands of Rinat. Rinat controlled the e- file with his rook and his e4 move paved way for a checkmate or queen loss with Bh3, a move later.

In an exchange down position Manik Mikulas of Slovekia had a plenty of compensation in the form three extra Pawns against Ziaur Rahman. But, he had to give up his knight to prevent Ziaur's centre pawn reaching the eighth rank. With two rooks acting in tandem, Ziaur snatched the game away from Manik in 64 moves.

In an absorbing game between Lalith Babu and Shyam Nikil, there were attacks and counter attacks. In the process, Shyam lost the exchange, losing his queen for a rook and bishop. He fought valiantly but Lalith Babu kept the pressure on to gain a point on the 33^rdmove. The Sicilian defence played by the top seed Eshan Ghaem Maghami against Asian Junior champion Ashwin Jayaram went against Maghami. After exchanging all the pieces, Ashwin had a pawn at the end and with his king ahead, it was not a problem for him to win.

Vikramaditya Kamble felled another grandmaster S. Arun Prasad in a semi Slav defence, launching a heavy attack on the king side. Siddharth quelled the challenge of GM Martyn Kravysiv of Ukraine in an aggressive game comprising 53 moves. The win earned him his maiden GM norm. Another GM victim is the national Blitz champion R.R. Laxman of ICF at the hands of Somak Palit of Railways.