New Delhi (31 Oct 2022):- Twelfth seed Harsha Bharathakoti (above left) continued his fine form and put it across International Master Koustav Chatterjee to snatch the solo lead with 4.5 points out of 5 rounds. The Asian Continental Chess Championship is being organized by the All India Chess Federation under the auspices of the Asian Chess Federation and FIDE at the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel in New Delhi, India. Visit chess-results.com to download games.
Playing with light coloured pieces in a Scotch game, Harsha exerted pressure on his rival’s territory to secure advantage in the middle game and garner the 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 a point.
Praggnanandhaa split the point with Leon Luke Mendonca while other overnight leaders Maksat Atabayev Maksat of Turkmenistan (above left) and Karthikeyan Murali signed the peace treaty.
Sethuraman S P, B Adhiban (photo above) and Vokhidov Shamsiddin of Uzbekistan are giving company to Praggnanandhaa, Karthikeyan Murali, Leon Luke Mendonca and Atabayev at the points 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 coloured pieces while Mendonca is paired against Sethuraman, Adhiban takes on Karthikeyan Murali and Shamsiddin is paired against Atabayev.
Meanwhile in the Women’s section, Woman Grandmasters Nandhidhaa P V (above left) and Priyanka Nutakki (below right) 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 the full point after 87 moves.
Priyanka made an exchange sacrifice to use her double bishop combo to annihilate her International Master rival in just 30 moves.
Priyanka, Nutakki (2326) from India had a very good attack during the game, but in this position she won with small tactic: 29… Qa2+ 30.Kc1 Rxd4! In this position Soumya, Swaminathan (2326) resigned because if 30. Rxd4 then 30…Qa1+ followed by 31….Qc3+ and then capturing the pawn and/or rook with check may be possible.
