Harikrishna in sole lead

Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua shot into sole lead with an emphatic victory over compatriot GM Pendyala Harikrishna in the sixth round of the Tata International Open Chess tournament, at the J R D Tata Sports complex, in Jamshedpur on Thursday.

As other results of the day poured in, Barua left his 10 nearest rivals a full point behind him.

Harikrishna, top seed GM Dmitry Svetushkin of Moldova, GM Sergei Ovsejevitsch of Ukraine, GM Alexander Fominyh of Russia, GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan, GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh, IM Tahir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and Indian IMs Sunderrajan Kidambi, V Saravanan and GM-in-waiting R B Ramesh have five points each.

It was yet another day that belonged to Barua. The bespectacled TISCO man naturally has a huge local backing in Jamshedpur and he did not disappoint his fans with two smashing victories against Grandmaster opposition.

Harikrishna was simply overawed by Barua's simple technical play in a Sicilian defence game, where the latter played white. The middle game looked good for Barua after Harikrishna made a positional mistake and was gradually ground effectively without any counter play.

The second board game between Svetushkin and Ovsejevitsch was a long-drawn battle that ended in a stalemate after both sides tried hard while it was a short draw on the third board between Ramesh and Fominyh, who both appeared tired having played a long game in the morning session.

Earlier, after the conclusion of the fifth round, both Barua and Harikrishna had emerged as joint leaders after beating Ziaur Rahman and Saidali Iuldashev respectively.

Of the two, Harikrishna was more impressive as he outplayed the former Asian number 2 in all departments of the game.

It was an English opening, where Iuldashev conceded the Bishop pair at the start, a passed pawn in the middlegame and the game itself in the ensuing ending. Barua had to used a lot of time on his clock but he maintained a definite advantage against Rahman till such time the latter crumbled under pressure to lose a piece.

Important results (Indians unless specified):

Round 6: Dibyendu Barua (6) beat P Harikrishna (5); Dmitry Svetushkin (5, Mda) drew Sergei Ovsejevitsch (5, Ukr); R B Ramesh (5) drew Alexander Fominyh (5, Rus); Tahir Vakhidov (5, Uzb) beat R Balasubramanium (4); Saidali Iuldashev (4.5) drew R R Laxman (4.5); Ziaur Rahman (5, Ban) beat Kh. Aminul Islam (4, Ban); Himanshu Sharma (4) lost to Marat Dzhumaev (5, Uzb); S R Kidambi (5) beat Atanu Lahiri (4); Deep Sengupta (4.5) drew Niaz Murshed (4.5, Ban); V Saravanan (5) beat Arindam Mukherjee (4); Arghyadip Das (4.5) drew S Poobesh Anand (4.5); Valay Parikh (4.5) drew Varugeese Koshy (4.5); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4.5) beat Sahikant Kotwal (4); S R Chowdhury (4) drew Jayant S Gokhale (4); M R VEnkatesh (4) drew Rahul Sangma (4); Suvrajit Saha (4.5) beat Syed Anwar Shazuli (3.5); Saurabh Kherdekar (4) drew T S Ravi (4); C Natrajan (4) drew Vishal Sareen (4); P Konguvel (4) drew Vinod Bhagwat (4); Amith Pal Singh (4.5) beat Neeraj Kumar Mishra (3.5); Anup Deshmukh (4) drew T J Suresh Kumar (4); S R Mishra (3.5) lost to Gurpreet Pal Singh (4.5); Somak Palit (4.5) beat Priotam Singh (3.5); Laltu Chatterjee (4) drew P D S Girinath (4); Aswin Jayram (3.5) lost to K Ratnakaran (4.5); S Arun Prasad (4.5) beat Joydev Saha (3.5); Harkamal Singh Sandhu (4.5) beat Saifuddin Lovlu (3.5).

Round 5: Harikrishna beat Iuldashev; Barua beat Rahman; Murshed lost to Svetushkin; Laxman drew Vakhidov; Fominyh beat Deshmukh; Ovsejevitsch beat Konguvel; Ramesh beat Girinath; Lahiri drew Saravanan; Dzhumaev beat P Singh: Manish Kumar lost to Kidambi; Shazuli drew Roy Chowdhury; Gokhale drew Venkatesh; Natrajan drew Saha; Sareen drew Kherdekar; P Anand beat Ketan Boricha; Mishra drew Mehdi Hasan (Ban); Koshy beat Pradip Ghosh; D P Singh lost to H Sharma; Balasubramanium beat K V Shantharam; G P Singh drew Laltu Chatterjee.