Defending champion International Master (IM) Ziaur Rahman of Biman retained the National Chess Championship title with an easy win over Khorshed Alam in the 13th round of the 25th edition played at the NSC conference room yesterday.

Playing with black pieces, Zia, who earlier won tne national title in 1988, 1994, 1996 and 1998, adopted the Queen Gambit defence with accepted variation and checkmated his opponent after 33 moves to win his fifth national title.

With yesterday's win. Zia. who had already won his 15th round clash against Ali Amjad in advance on the rest day, raised his tally to 12 points out of a possible 14 and earned a 2.5 points lead over fellow IM and former champion Reefat-bin-Sattar and national junior champion Enamul Hossain with one match in hand.

Ali Amjad had to play his 15th round tie with Zia in advance on April 28 because he will move to India tonight along with six other players to take part in a tournament in Maharashtra.

Reefat and Enamul, who are jointly sharing the second spot with 9.5 points each, have two matches in hand.

In yesterday's round, Reefat edged past Jamilur Rahman while Enamul was forced to a draw by last year's runner up IM Abdullah-Al-Rakib.

Playing with black pieces, Reefat followed the French defence to checkmate his veteran opponent after 33 moves while the tie between Enamul and Rakib ended in a draw after 32 moves.

Rezaul Haque of Biman was in the third spot after yesterday's round where he earned a walk-over against Monir Hossain. Rezaul. with the full point, raised his tally to 8.5 points.

In another board. Narayanganj s Feroz Ahmed defeated Ali Amjad of Ansars while three other matches—Sheikh Nasir Ahmed vs Aminul Islam. Sawkat Hossain vs Mohammad Javed, and Taibur Rahman vs Saifuddin Ahmed—were going on till our filing of this report last night.

The penultimate round of the 15-round robin league will start at the same venue today at 3 pm.

Leaders: 12 points—Zia, 9.5

' points—Reefat and Enamul. 8.5 points—Rezaul, 7 points— Taibur and Rakib. 6.5 points— Nasir and Saifuddin and 6 points—Sawkat.

Round 14 fixture

Zia vs Enamul

Rakib vs Sawkat

Monir vs Javed Nasir vs Rezaul Reefat vs Aminul Taibur vs Jamilur Feroz vs Saifuddin Khorshed vs Ali Amjad