Kunte and Harikrishna spilt point

Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte drew with International Master Pendyala Harikrishna to jointly lead the field with a slender half point margin after the end of the fifth round of Commonwealth chess championship in London.

Both Kunte and Harikrishna have four points from five games and are followed by ten players on 3.5 points including four Indians - GM Dibyendu Barua, GM Pravin Thipsay, IM Lanka Ravi and IM P Konguvel.

The Indian women's contingent had a tough day, with only Woman International Master Bhagyashree Thipsay salvaging half a point against Heather Richards of England.

WIM Saheli Dhar lost to GM Dimitri Anagnostopoulos of Greece while Y Pratibha lost to Mielis Annaberdiev of Turkmenistan.

Kunte and Harikrishna drew without much ado on the top table. The draw took Harikrishna a step nearer to the Grandmaster title as he needs just one more norm to complete the formalities.

In the next round Harikrishna will play against Colin Crouch while Kunte will battle it out against David Gormally.

Dibyendu Barua could not break through the defences of Graeme Buckley of England (3.5) despite much effort. After getting a slightly inferior position, the English IM put up a brave front and wriggled out of his difficulties with some timely exchanges that saved the day. In the end Barua decided to accept the draw.

Pravin Thipsay drew with GM Sapar Batyrov (3.5) with black pieces. The Turk, who has not been playing much competitive chess outside his country for quite some time now, did not appear in much difficulty in the middlegame and steered the game to equality after a couple of regulation exchanges.

Lanka Ravi was impressive in his draw against Colin Mcnab of Scotland (3.5) with black pieces. After a dismal loss to Kunte in the previous game, Mcnab was not his usual attacking self while Lanka played it safe in the middlegame.

Konguvel put his loss to Harikrishna in the previous round behind and came back strongly to defeat Ihab Salem of Palestine (3) with white pieces. Konguvel capitalised on a rather lacklustre piece-play by Salem and got a firm control on the kingside to get his pieces rolling.