Harsha beats Koustav to snatch lead in Asian Continental Championship

New Delhi: Twelfth seed Harsha Bharathakoti continued his fine form and put it across International Master Koustav Chatterjee to snatch the sole lead on four and half point after the end of fifth round matches at the Asian Continental Chess Championship here on Sunday.

Playing with light coloured pieces in a Scotch game, Harsha exerted pressure on his rival’s territory to secure advantage in the middle game to garner full point after 49 moves.

A pack of seven Grandmasters including top seed Praggnanandhaa are now trailing behind the leader with a drift of half point. Praggnanandhaa split the point with Leon Luke Mendonca while  other overnight leaders Maksat Atabayev Maksat of Turkmenistan and Karthikeyan Murali signed the peace treaty.

Sethuraman S P, B Adhiban and Vokhidov Shamsiddin of Uzbekistan are giving company to Praggnanandhaa, Karthikeyan Murali, Leon Luke Mendonca and Atabayev at point table with emphatic victories in the fifth round against Raja Rithvik, Sammed Jaykumar Shete and Sanket Chakravarty respectively. In the crucial sixth round match on Monday Praggnanandhaa takes on leader Harsha with dark colour pieces while Mendonca paired against Sethuraman, Adhiban takes on Karthikeyan Murali and Shamsiddin paired against Atabayev.

Meanwhile in the Women’s section, Woman Grandmasters Nandhidhaa P V and Priyanka Nutakki scored victories over Thi Kim Phung Vo of Vietnam and Soumya Swaminathan respectively to become joint leaders with four and half points.

Playing white side of the French Defense game, Nandhidhaa dominated her Vietnamese rival throughout the match to secure full point after 87 moves while Priyanka made an exchange sacrifice to use her double bishop combo to annihilate her International Master rival in just 30 moves.