Title aspirant Tanima Parveen earned a solo lead in the 21st National Womens Chess Championship despite being forced to a draw by Masuda Begum In the sixth round yesterday.

In a marathon six-hour long encounter. Tanima. the former two time champion, played with white against the Modern Defence of Masuda and accepted the draw after 61 moves.

With the draw. Tanima raised her tally to five points, half a point more than Syeda Shabana Parveen Nlpa who was also at the top with Tanima before the start of the round.

Ntpa suffered her first defeat of the championship to Zakia Sultana and remained stuck to her previous collection of four and a half points.

Playing with black places against the Queen Pawn opening of Zakia. Nipa surrendered after 41 moves. Zakia, with yesterdays win. joined Nipa in the second position with the same number of points.

In the day’s other matches. Nazrana Khan (4 points) defeated Afroza Haque Chowdhury (0) and Jahanara Haque Runu (3.5) beat Firoza Haque Chowdhury (.5).

The other match between defending champion Rani Hamid (3.5) and Syeda Afsana Parveen Nira (2) was going on till filing of this report.

No matches will be played today or tomorrow. The seventh round will begin on Friday at 2:30 pm.