Grandmaster Koneru Humpy of Andhra Pradesh continued with her winning ways and put it across T S Ravi of Bank Sports Board in the seventh round of 41st National 'A' Chess Championship at the Chess India Complex in Kozikhode on Monday.
Humpy, with six points in her kitty, is now ahead of Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly of PSPB on 5.5 and GM R B Ramesh, who is the sole occupant of the third spot, on 5 points.
Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury, who is in excellent contention for his second IM norm, is in fourth place with four points as 16 more rounds remain to be played in this 24-player tournament.
Ganguly, who defeated Commonwealth champion GM Dibyendu Barua, played the best game of the day with his white pieces. The opening was a repetition of their previous encounter at the Tata International Open in Jamshedpur where Barua had successfully drawn with his French defence.
This time, however, Ganguly sprang up an opening surprise by going for a less played move and soon had Barua under trouble with regards development. Slow and steady manoeuvres thereon helped Ganguly to pile up tremendous pressure around Baura's king and the latter surrendered after failing to spot a simple knight retreat that would have cost material deficit.
Humpy played an irregular opening set-up against Ravi but the Chennai-based player could not take any advantage with white. The middle game ensued with Humpy having better control and Ravi sacrificed a piece in his counter play bid.
However, Ravi had already fallen under time scramble and filed to find the most effective moves that could have kept him in the game.
Humpy notched the full point after forcing the exchange of queens and grabbing one pawn after another.
Top seeded Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna of Andhra Pradesh survived a scare against S Vikramjit Singh of Manipur, who put in another spirited performance before messing up a winning position. Hari forced the draw once he got the chance in a piece down endgame.
Results (round 7): S Vikramjit Singh (3) drew P Harikrishna; S Kidambi (3) drew Sandipan Chanda (4); S S Ganguly (5.5) beat Dibyendu Barua (4); R B Ramesh (5) drew Abhijit Kunte (4); Vishal Sareen (3.5) drew Roktim Bandhopadhyay (2); M R Venkatesh (3) playing Prathamesh Mokal (2.5); M Srinivasa Rao (1.5) lost to Sriram Jha (2.5); T S Ravi (2.5) lost to Koneru Humpy (6); S Satyapragyan (4) beat V Hariharan (1.5); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhary (4.5) drew Suvrajit Saha (4); Neelotpal Das (4) drew Arghyadip Das (2.5); Tejas Bakre (3) drew Praveen Thipsay (4).
