Humpy back on top with Ganguly, Deepan

Visakhapatnam, Apr 10 (UNI) Executing a neat win, Grandmaster Koneru Humpy moved on top of the board with 7.5 points from ten rounds at the 43rd National 'A' chess championship, here today.

Sharing the lead with Humpy are defending champion Grandmaster Surya Sekhar Ganguly and former Asian Junior Champion and GM Elect Deepan Chakkravarthy.

Humpy came back strongly after her defeat yesterday, with a terrific win over Thejkumar of Karnataka. In the Queen's Gambit declined variation, she chose the exchange variation and slowly built a good centre and cramped black in a one sided affair.

Earlier, Deepan Chakkravarthy and GM Ganguly drew their personal encounter. Deepan sprung a surprise by playing Classical variation of the Sicilian defence for the first time in his life. He based his play on an earlier game Sasikiran had with Ganguly. A cautious Ganguly, baffled by Deepan's opening preparation, chose a tame set up, which allowed black to equalise and obtain an edge. However Deepan missed some attacking opportunities and allowed white a pawn breakthrough.

For the next series of moves until finish, both players were at their tactical best. Due to white's weak back rank and a strong central passed pawn, Ganguly promoted his pawn into a Knight instead of the powerful Queen to give perpetual checks and a draw.

Deepan has now become a Grandmaster Elect as he obtained his third and final GM norm after his drawn encounter with Ganguly.

Meanwhile, GM Sandipan Chanda who defeated Humpy yesterday, went down to GM Abhijeet Kunte. Kunte used the Torre attack against the Kings Indian defence and secured an advantage. Finding himself unable to cope with pressure of white's pieces on the light squares, Sandipan gave way.

D P Singh of Jhark and continued steady play with a draw against IM M R Venkatesh. In the Bogo defence, which Venkatesh adopted with Black, he got a better position in view of white's doubled pawns.

However, towards the end of the game with very little time left, he allowed his advantage to fizzle out in a Rook and Knight endgame.

In the women's section, WGM Swathi Ghate of LIC leads with 7.0 points, followed by WGM Vijayalakshmi, Meenakshi and Harika at 5.5 points. Swathi continued to lead with a win over Kiran Monisha Mohanty of Orissa from the white side of the Sicilian classical.

Black played a series of strange Rook-e8-d8-d7-c7 moves before developing Queen side pieces and was found wanting as Swati won.

Harika went in for a theoretical rook sacrifice against Alka Das's Grunfeld defence, after holding out against white kingside attack, Alka made a series of errors in a rook endgame. Meenakahi faced Iswarya Shobana's Kings Indian defence and played the fianchetto system. She allowed Black pieces to reorganise well but while trying to attack white's King, Iswarya landed in difficulties.

Vijayalakshmi played yet another marathon game lasting 79 moves.

Her opponent Nimmy George of Kerela put up a tough defence to hold.

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