Negi in sole lead

Parimarjan in sole lead after resounding winPosted: Wed Jan 12 2011, 02:32 hrs
New Delhi

As the competition advances, the top players in the fray are finding the going increasingly tough. While six players shared the lead at the end of the fifth round on Monday, it was local hope and title favourite Parimarjan Negi who shot ahead of the pack on Tuesday, taking sole lead at the 9th Parsvnath international open chess tournament here.

Current national champion Negi beat International Master and compatriot Rahul Sangma in the sixth round. With this, he also remains the only player in the field to have won all his matches in the tournament so far. For Sangma, this was his first defeat of the tournament.

Playing white side of exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez opening, Negi started cautiously, gauging his opponent’s game before going for the kill. Once settled in, he appeared to be in a hurry to finish off the game and showed attacking skills towards the end of the game against his city mate to garner full points after 38 moves.

Meanwhile, another Delhi players in the fray were unable to match Negi and had to settle for half points, after agreeing to draws. Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta and International Master Sahaj Grover managed to hold top seed Alexander Areshchenko of Ukraine and fifth seed Slovenian Grandmaster Lenik Luka in their respective sixth round encounters.

Playing black in Grunfeld defence, Areshchenko signed the peace treaty with Gupta in identical 38 moves while Grover and Luka agreed to split points in just 21 moves. In other sixth round encounters, Grandmaster S Arun Prasad beat International Master Himanshu Sharma while West Bengal youngster Diptayan Ghosh held Grandmaster S Kidambi.

More here.