Harikrishna shoots into sole lead

Triple Grandmaster norm holder Pendyala Harikrishna shot into sole lead with a comprehensive victory over International Master Colin Crouch of England in the sixth round of Commonwealth chess championship in London.

The 15-year-old Harikrishna has now five points to his credit from six outings which is creditable given the fact that he started his first round with a half point bye.

Four players including top seed GM Abhijit Kunte, GM Pravin Thipsay, Woman Grandmaster Jovanka Houska and IM Graeme Buckley of England trail the leader by a slender half point margin with four more rounds to be played.

Among other Indians in the fray, IM Lanka Ravi is in joint fifth position on four points while GM Dibyendu Barua, IM P Konguvel and IM Neeraj Kumar Mishra have 3.5 points each.

Amongst the Indian women aspirants, only Y Pratibha managed to score a victory as Saheli Barua and Bhagyashree Thipsay went down after intense struggles.

Harikrishna's tendency of taking the bull by its horns paid rich dividends on Friday as Colin Crouch, who has written a few good books on the game, failed to match the vigour and speed of the Indian stalwart.

Playing his pet Queens Indian defence with black pieces, Harikrishna was unperturbed even as Crouch went for one of the unorthodox variations to ensure a bloody battle.

In the opening itself, Crouch came with a pawn sacrifice but Harikrishna returned the favour on his 15th move to seize the initiative on the queenside.

With no way out in sight to make a foray into black's territory, Crouch thought it better to get a few pieces off the board and went for trade of queens on the 20th move.

However, that cost him a pawn and Harikrishna did not give another chance to the Englishman to stage a comeback. Harikrishna made merry with his extra pawns and went for an exchanging spree that left Crouch helpless. The game lasted 47 moves.

In a shock defeat, Dibyendu Barua went down to Jovanka Houska in a French defence game with black pieces. Barua opted for routine piece-play in the Advance variation that gave him a dynamic equilibrium, thanks to space advantage on queenside.

But Barua made a middlegame error that allowed Jovanka to win a pawn through a simple combination. In the endgame, Barua exchanged the queens after getting a central pawn but had to pay the price for his over ambitious approach in the ensuing rooks and pawns endgame. Jovanka cashed in on her chances well to romp home after 63 moves.

Pravin Thipsay accounted for teammate Konguvel in another French defence game of the day with white pieces. An exponent of the Advance variation, Thipsay had no trouble in getting the upper hand right after the opening and his Knights took menacing outposts on fifth rank to create decisive threats.

Thipsay went for direct attack against the king after restricting Konguvel's pieces from making any headway. With perfect calculation, Thipsay got his rook and queen in the seventh rank and clinched the issue in 41 moves.

Lanka Ravi drew with GM Sapar Batyrov of Turkmenistan while IM Neeraj Kumar Mishra achieved the same result against Andrew Bigg of England.