Former Asian junior chess champion P. Karthikeyan scored a crushing victory over GM Arun Prasad to be among the seven leaders after six rounds in the Apollo Engineering College Commonwealth Chess Championship here on Monday.
IM Karthikeyan hunted down the uncastled white king of Arun Prasad with aggressive play and multiple sacrifices to win in 28 moves.
All three overnight joint leaders failed to win. Sethuraman was at the receiving end in a brilliant game from Egypt’s Adly who dazzled with two rook sacrifices to win in 39 moves.
The top board clash between Oleksienko and Lalith Babu ended in a draw after 39 moves with all eight minor pieces exchanged off from the board. This allowed five new players to join the leader board.
Top seed Tiviakov, second seed Adly, Venkatesh, Karthikeyan and Ram S. Krishnan won round six to join Oleksienko and Lalith Babu at the top of the table on 5.5 points.
Ram won Akshayraj Kore’s queen on move 21 with a simple back rank tactic. Venkatesh had to grind his way to defeat Himanshu Sharma in 66 moves. Kidambi sacrificed a pawn in the opening but Tiviakov won a minor piece in the middle game to win in 36 moves.
Former Asian Junior champion Shyam Sundar used a discovered tactic to defeat former Asian Junior girls champion Bhakti Kulkarni in just 18 moves.
National champion G. Akash’s endgame skills were fully tested in his sixth round victory over Karma Pandya.
Lakshmi Narayanan held National women’s champion Mary Ann Gomes to a brilliant draw in 73 moves after a see-saw middlegame.
This allowed Tania Sachdev and Nisha Mohota to be the top scorers thus far among women on five points each.
Important results (round six): M. Oleksienko (Ukr) 5.5 drew with M.R. Lalith Babu 5.5; S.P. Sethuraman 5 lost to Ahmed Adly (Egy) 5.5; S. Tiviakov (Ned) 5.5 bt S. Kidambi 4.5; Ankit Rajpara 5 drew with D. Lintchevski (Rus) 5; M. Dzhumaev (Uzb) 5 drew with Arun Karthik 5; H. Sharma 4.5 lost to M.R. Venkatesh 5.5; S. Arun Prasad 4.5 lost to P. Karthikeyan 5.5; Ram S. Krishnan 5.5 bt Akshayraj Kore 4.5; B. Adhiban 4.5 drew with Padmini Rout 4.5; T. Purushothaman 4 lost to M. Paragua (Phi) 5; S. Grover 5 bt M. Kunal 4; Sameer Kathmale 5 bt Ashwin Jayaram 4; M. Shyam Sundar 5 bt Bhakti Kulkarni 4; G. Akash 5 bt Karma Pandya 4; M.V. Lakshmi Narayanan 4.5 drew with Mary Ann Gomes 4.5.
