National champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly emerged as the sole leader with six points at the end of 6th round of the Tata Steel All India Open Chess Tournament in Kolkata today. Ganguly outwitted two city-based GMs Diyendu Barua and Sandipan Chanda to sit pretty at the top. Deepan Chakraborty of Tamil Nadu trails Ganguly with 5.5 points after the second day of the three-day meet. In the fifth round, Ganguly got the better of Barua in a tense struggle. While Ganguly, playing black, obtained an advantage in the two knight defence, Barua wriggled out of his cramped position and equalised but lost the game on time. However, 11-year old Bitan Banerjee of Goodricke National Chess Academy stole the show on the 2nd day as he upset national women's champion WGM Nisha Mohota of LIC in the second round and went on to beat IM Rahul Shetty of Indian Airlines in the third round. Hard-fought game Confronting Mohata's favourite Alekhine defence, Banerjee won a rook for three central pawns. He then consolidated his position by blocking Mohota's central pawns after which her position collapsed. In other upsets of the day, Comak Palit held Barua to a creditable draw in a hard-fought game and Chakraborty shared point with second seed GM Abhijit Kunte of Indian Oil.Suman Basu of GNCA beat IM Suvrajit Saha of Railways, Harish Sharma got the better of IM MR Venkatesh and Anirban Guha Roy outclassed IM RR Laxman. City based GM Sandipan Chanda of ONGC managed to squeeze out a win against IM Lanka Ravi also of ONGC despite having an inferior position for most part of the game. (PTI)
Sekhar Ganguly emerges sole leader
Advertisement