Chennai girl Michelle Catherina scored one victory in the morning — on the counterattack against Lasya of Andhra — and followed that up with another stunning attacking win over Shweta Gole of Maharashtra in the evening to emerge the sole leader in the RMK Residential School National sub-junior chess championship here on Thursday.
Michelle leads with full six points from as many rounds. One point behind her are M. Mahalakshmi, Meenu Priya, P.V. Nandhidhaa, Nisha Patkar (Kar) and G. Lasya (AP).
Top seed Sai Krishna of Vijayawada impressed in the boys' group by winning both his games to join Pranav Vijay of Tamil Nadu in the lead with 5.5 points. His sixth round victim was Shaikh of Mumbai.
In the joint third place on five points are S.L. Narayanan (Ker), Karma Pandya (Guj), K.G. Chaithanyaa (TN) and Praneeth Surya (AP).
On the top board, Akash was lucky to get a draw in 28 moves after Pranav won a queen for a rook and knight.
On board two, Sai Krishna beat Shaikh in 42 moves with an advanced queen-rook-pawn helping him net an enemy rook.
Important results: Boys: Sixth round: Pranav Vijay (TN) 5.5 drew with G. Akash (TN) 5, G.V. Sai Krishna (AP) 5.5 bt M.N. Shaikh (Mah) 4.5, S.L. Narayanan (Ker) 5 drew with Shardul Gagare (Mah) 4.5, Sayantan Das (WB) 4.5 drew with R. Ganesh (TN) 4.5, Prince Bajaj (Del) 4.5 drew with M. Siddarth (TN) 4.5, Karthikeyan Murali (TN) 4.5 drew with Mugil Jayavel (TN) 4.5, Praveen Kumar (AP) 4 lost to Karma Pandya (Guj) 5, K.G. Chaithanyaa (TN) 5 bt Ayush Jugele (Mah) 4, Chandar Raju (Ker) 4 lost to K. Praneeth Surya (AP) 5, Krishna Teja (AP) 3.5 lost to Girish Koushik (Kar) 4.5. Fifth round: Siddarth lost to Pranav, Akash Pc Iyer lost to Sai Krishna, M.N. Shaikh bt A. Augustin.
Girls:Sixth round: Michelle Catherina (TN) 6 bt Shweta Gole (Mah) 4.5, G.K. Monnisha (TN) 4.5 lost to G. Lasya (AP) 5, P.V. Nandhidhaa (TN) 5 bt Mahasweta Kumar (Asm) 4, Meenu Priya (TN) 5 bt Sonakshi Rathore (Raj) 4, Nisha Patkar (Kar) 5 bt Bala Kannamma (TN) 4, N. Akshaya (TN) 4 lost to M. Mahalakshmi (TN) 5, Srija Seshadri (TN) 4.5 bt B.N. Gangamma (Kar) 3.5. Fifth round: Lasya lost to Michelle, Shweta Gole beat R. Salini.
