Commonwealth champion Lalith Babu (5.5 points) defeated Kirill Kuderinov of Kazakhstan with a beautiful rook sacrifice to join the leaders at the end of the sixth round in the Chennai Super Kings International Grand Master chess tournament here on Friday.
Grand Master Lalith Babu advanced his king at every given opportunity and created the platform for this 58-move endgame win. He shared the lead with Grand Masters, Teske (Ger) and Lu Shanglei (Chn).
On the top board, joint leaders Teske and Lu Shanglei drew in 26 disappointing moves, playing with a safety-first attitude.
Having lost the morning game, top seed Aleksandrov of Belarus played aggressively to crush Prasanna Rao in 46 moves. A few Grand Master aspirants did well. Swapnil Dhopade used a deflection tactic to win a rook for bishop against Maheswaran. B.T. Muralikrishnan held second seed Andrei Deviatkin to a draw in only 26 moves.
The top two seeds suffered defeats in the morning session. Lu Shanglei kept the opening quiet and won a knight with a back rank tactic against top seed Aleksandrov in 36 moves. Second seed Deviatkin paid the price for overstretching a level ending against Henrik Teske.
Important results (round six): Henrik Teske (Ger) 5.5 drew with Lu Shanglei (Chn) 5.5; M. Dzhumaev (Uzb) 5 drew with Wan Yunguo (Chn) 5; Kirill Kuderinov (Kaz) 4.5 lost to M.R. Lalith Babu 5.5; A Aleksandrov (Blr) 5 bt Prasanna Rao 4.5; B.T. Muralikrishnan 4.5 drew with A. Deviatkin (Rus) 4.5; B Adhiban 5 bt Adarsh Jayakumar (USA) 4; A Czebe 5 bt C Praveen Kumar 4; G.B. Prakash 4.5 drew with Niaz Murshed (Ban) 4.5; Swapnil Dhopade 5 bt P Maheswaran 4; Shashikant Kutwal 4.5 drew with P Shyam Nikil 4.5.
