Woman Grandmaster S Vijayalakshmi defeated veteran Grandmaster Neil McDonald of England to move to the joint third spot after the sixth round in of the Smith and Williamson British chess championship at Edinburgh, Scotland on Sunday.
Local star GM Paul Motwani joined overnight leader Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh atop the table with a finely crafted victory over compatriot Colin Mcnab. Both Rahman and Motwani have amassed 5 points out of a possible 6 games so far and will meet in the next round.
Half a point adrift of the two leaders are former champion GM Joseph Gallagher of Switzerland, top seed Vassilos Kotronias of Cyprus, Jonathan Rowson of Scotland, Arakhamia Grant Ketevan of Georgia, Englishmen Peter Wells and Daniel Gormally and Indians Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Abhijit Kunte, Pendyala Harikrishna and S Vijayalakshmi.
Aspiring for her Women Grandmaster norm, Swati Ghate achieved yet another desirable result after she drew with teammate Tejas Bakre.
Swati now has an excellent chance of making her maiden International Master norm as she has an enviable opponent's average rating of more than 2487 points and should she maintain the same, the WGM norm can be hers even with her present score.
However, for an IM norm she will need to score at least one point in next two games.
GM norm seeker S Kidambi moved a little ahead in the standings but it is still a long journey for him. Kidambi put behind his disastrous loss in the previous round and accounted for Andrew Greet of England to move to 4 points.
The form of Commonwealth champion Dibyendu Barua continued to desert him as unheralded Thomas Nixon held him to a creditable draw. Barua has just 3 points from his 6 games and will hope to do better after the rest day on Sunday.
Vijayalakshmi's superior tactics came in handy against McDonald, who fell prey to some well-calculated manoeuvres. After her first round against Swati, Vijayalakshmi has made some rapid strides and is now a firm contender for the British women's championship crown won last year by Koneru Humpy.
The top board game between Ziaur Rahman and Gallagher ended in a draw without much ado. Rahman opened with the King pawn and Gallagher's faith in the Kings Indian yet again came in handy with black pieces as he achieved easy equality in the Petrosian system. The draw was agreed to on move 19.
Ganguly did try to make headway against Gormally but the defences of the Englishmen proved impregnable. The opening was a Sicilian Nazdorf where Ganguly, white, employed the classical setup and went for queenside play in the middle game. Gormally equalized with exchanges at regular intervals and took the half point after 34 moves.
Abhijit Kunte also did not achieve much against the Kings Indian of Kotronias. Opting for a rather offbeat plan in the Fianchetto variation, Abhijit let Kotronias maintain the dynamic balance and drew in just 22 moves.
Among the Indian eves, Aarthie Ramaswamy and Eesha Karvade scored victories over Adrian Jackson and Chin Lee Lim respectively while Nisha Mohota went down to IM Reefat Bin Sattar of Bangladesh. S Meenakshi drew with Samuel Williams.
Important - Results Round 6 (Indians unless specified): Ziaur Rahman (5, Ban) drew Joseph Gallagher (4.5, Sui); Abhijit Kunte (4.5) drew Vassilos Kotronias (4.5, Cyp); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4.5) drew Daniel Gormally (4.5, Eng); Aaron Summerscale (4, Eng) lost to Paul Motwani (5, Sco); Pendyala Harikrishna (4.5) beat Stewart Haslinger (3.5, Eng); Abdulla Al-Rakib (3.5, Ban) lost to Jonathan Rowson (4.5, Sco); Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan (4.5, Geo) beat Nicholas Pert (3.5, Eng); Peter Wells (4.5, Eng) beat Adam Hunt (3.5, Eng); Neil McDonald (3.5, Eng) lost to S Vijayalakshmi (4.5); Tejas Bakre (4) drew Swati Ghate (4); Graham Lee (3, Eng) lost to Stuart Conquest (4, Eng); Nisha Mohota (3) lost to Reefat Bin Sattar (4, Ban); S Kidambi (4) beat Andrew Greet (3, Eng); Colin Mcnab (3.5, Sco) drew Ameet K Ghasi (3.5, Eng); Gurpreet Pal Singh (3) lost to Simon Williams (4, Eng); Dibyendu Barua (3) drew Thomas Nixon (3, Eng); Samuel Williams (2.5, Eng) drew S Meenakshi (2.5); Aarthi Ramaswamy (3) beat Adrian Jackson (2, Eng); Neelotpal Das (2.5) beat Melanie Buckley (1.5, Eng); Eesha Karavade (2.5) beat Chin Lee Lim (1.5, Mas).
