New Delhi: Twelfth seed Harsha Bharathakoti continued his fine form and put it across International Master Koustav Chatterjee to snatch the sole lead on four and half point after the end of fifth round matches of the Asian Continental Chess Championship here at the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel on Sunday.
Playing with light coloured pieces in a Scotch game, Harsha exerted pressure on his rival’s territory to secure advantage in the middle game to garner full point after 49 moves. A pack of seven Grandmasters including top seed Praggnanandhaa are now trailing behind the leader with a drift of half point. Praggnanandhaa split the point with Leon Luke Mendonca while other overnight leaders Maksat Atabayev Maksat of Turkmenistan and Karthikeyan Murali signed the peace treaty.
Sethuraman S P, B Adhiban and Vokhidov Shamsiddin of Uzbekistan are giving company to Praggnanandhaa, Karthikeyan Murali, Leon Luke Mendonca and Atabayev at point table with emphatic victories in the fifth round against Raja Rithvik, Sammed Jaykumar Shete and Sanket Chakravarty respectively. In the crucial sixth round match on Monday Praggnanandhaa takes on leader Harsha with dark colour pieces while Mendonca paired against Sethuraman, Adhiban takes on Karthikeyan Murali and Shamsiddin paired against Atabayev.
Meanwhile in the Women’s section, Woman Grandmasters Nandhidhaa P V and Priyanka Nutakki scored victories over Thi Kim Phung Vo of Vietnam and Soumya Swaminathan respectively to become joint leaders with four and half points.
Playing white side of the French Defense game, Nandhidhaa dominated her Vietnamese rival throughout the match to secure full point after 87 moves while Priyanka made an exchange sacrifice to use her double bishop combo to annihilate her International Master rival in just 30 moves.
Important Results Round-5 (Indians otherwise stated) :- GM Praggnanandhaa R (4) drew with Leon Luke Mendonca (4); GM Maksat Atabayev of Turkmenistan (4) drew with GM Karthikeyan Murali (4); GM Harsha Bharathakoti (4.5) beat IM Koustav Chatterjee (3.5); GM Narayanan S L (3.5) drew with GM Shyam Sundar M (3.5); GM Sethuraman S P (4) beat GM Raja Rithvik R (3); GM Aravindh Chithambaram (3.5) drew with IM Saparmyrat Atabayev of Turkmenistan (3.5); GM Adhiban B (4) beat IM Sameed Jaykumar Shete (3); Sanket Chakravarty (3) to GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov of Uzbekistan (4); IM Viani Antonio Dcunha (3.5) drew with GM Abhimanyu Puranik (3); GM Rinat Jumabayev of Kazakhstan (3.5) beat GM Bilguun Sumiya of Mongolia (2.5); GM Mitrabha Guha (2.5) lost to IM Pranav V (3.5); IM Aditya Samant (3) drew with GM Sankalp Gupta (3); IM Urazayev Arystanbek of Kazakhstan (3.5) beat IM Pranav Anand (2.5); IM Yusup Atabayev of Turkmenistan (2.5) lost to FM Ayush Sharma (3.5); IM Ajay Karthikeyan (3) drew with IM Shyaamnikhil P (3).
Women’s Round-5 :– WGM Nandhidhaa P V(4.5) beat WGM Vo Thi Kim Phung of Vietnam (3.5); IM Soumya Swaminathan (3.5) lost to WGM Priyanka Nutakki (4.5); WGM Nilufar Yakubbaeva of Uzbekistan (4) beat WIM Saina Salonika (3); WGM Mary Ann Gomes (3.5) beat WIM Rakshitta Ravi (3); IM Tania Sachdev (3) drew with WGM Thi Mai Hung Nguyen of Vietnam (3); FM Liya Kurmangaliyeva of Kazakhstan (2.5) lost to IM Padmini Rout (3.5); WIM Xeniya Balabayeva of Kazakhstan (3) drew with WGM Vantika Agrawal (3); WIM Sakshi Chitlange (2.5) lost to WGM Divya Deshmukh (3.5); WIM Cholleti Sahajasri (3.5) beat WIM Parnali S Dharia (2.5); WGM Varshini V (3) drew with WIM Amina Kairbekova of Kazakhstan (3)
