Shalmali Gagare emerges sole leader

Chennai, Oct 6 (UNI) Shalmali Gagare of Maharashtra emerged sole leader in the sixth round of the Canara Bank 24th National Sub-Junior Girls Chess Championship here today.

Shalmali bagged 5.5 points. Half a point behind her are Devangi Patankar (Mah), Pon N Krithika and M Kushboo (TN), N L V Anusha and K Sai Nirupama (AP) and A Niji (Ker).

In the boys section, as many as seven players - S Nitin, B Adhiban and S P Sethuraman (TN), Aditya Udeshi (Mah), Fenil Shah (Guj), Abhratanu Dutta (WB) and M R Lalith Babu (AP) shared the lead with five points each.

On the girls top board, Pon N Krithika just managed to avoid defeat at the hands of Devangi Patankar and drew. But on the second table, Shalmali Gagare had a fluent victory over unorthodox Pallabi Roy of Kolkatta.

In the boys section, World Youth Olympiad gold medalists Adhiban and Nitin had a draw in 22 moves. But the other Olympiad Gold medalist Swayams Mishra of Orissa was beaten by Abhratanu Dutta of West Bengal.

Results(round 6): Boys: B Adhiban (TN) 5 drew S Nitin(TN) 5.

Prasanna Rao (Mah) 4.5 lost to Udeshi Aditya (Mah) 5.

Bitan Banerjee (WB) 4 lost to S P Sethuraman (TN) 5.

M R Lalith Babu (AP) 5 bt G A Stany (Kar) 4.

K Priyadharshan (TN) 4.5 drew Antonio Viani D'cunha (Kar) 4.5.

Fenil Shah (Guj) 5 bt Debashis Das (Ori) 4.

R Bhuvanesh (TN) 4.5 drew M Shyam Sundar (TN) 4.5.

Abhratanu Dutta (WB) 5 bt Swayams Mishra (Ori) 4.

N Srinath (TN) 4 drew Girish A Koushik (Kar) 4.5.

Hemant Sharma (Del) 3.5 lost to N Niranjan (Kar) 4.5.

Girls: Devangi Patankar (Mah) 5 drew Pon N Krithika (TN) 5 Shalmali Gagare (Mah) 5.5 bt Pallabi Roy (WB) 4.5 Y G Sriharika (AP) 4 lost to Nlv Anusha (AP) 5 J Mohana Priya (TN) 4 lost to A Niji (Ker) 5 K S Nirupama (AP) 5 bt Shristi Shetty (Kar) 4 M Kushboo (TN) 5 bt C H Savetha (TN) 3.5 J Sahari (AP) 4 drew S V Sathya Priya (TN) 4 Shaati Majumder (WB) 4.5 bt P Sujitha (TN) 3.5 Sonakshi Rathore (Raj) 3.5 drew J Vaishnavi (TN) 4 R Bharathi (TN) 4 bt S Anjana Krishna (Ker) 3 UNI