Vaibhav Suri among leaders in Chennai Open chess

Talented Delhi lad Vaibhav Suri beat local challenger Vishnu Prasanna and moved into the joint lead after the sixth round of the SDAT-RMK Chennai Open International Grandmaster chess tournament here Saturday.

Suri leads the table with 5.5 points, along with GMs Aleksandrov Aleksej (Belarus) and Oleksienko Mikhailo (Ukraine), and untitled Chinese strongman Yu Ruiyuan.

Behind the leaders were GMs Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukraine), SP. Sethuraman (India), Gomez John Paul (Philippines), Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh) and Hoang Thanh Trang (Hungary) at 5.0 points in a group of 11 players.

Seeded players were less harassed, even as Orissa lad Debashis Das emerged as the lone GM conqueror. The Queens Gambit game saw Bitoon Richard (Philippines) in an aggressive mood, as he pushed his kingside pawns for an all out attack.

An unsuccessful middle game combination by Richard saw him going down by a piece, as Debashis defended accurately. Unable to press further, Richard resigned on the 25th move.

The top board game between young Uzbek International Master Jahongir Vakhidov and top seed Aleksej ended in favour of the Russian. The Nimzo Indian game saw Vakhidov playing it safe, while higher seeded Aleksj kept pressurising on the kingside for initiative.

Taking further risks put Vakhidov in a precarious position, as Aleksj the open white position to his advantage with some precise play. The young IM from Uzbekistan called it quits as he faced the loss of material along with a mating attack.

Results (Round 6): Vakhidov Jahongir (Uzbekistan) 4.5 lost to Aleksandrov Aleksej (Belarus) 5.5, Oleksienko Mikhailo (Ukraine)5.5 bt Neelotpal Das (4.5), Himanshu Sharma (5) drew Rahman Ziaur (Bangladesh) 5, Akshayraj Kore (4.5) lost to Yu Ruiyuan (China) 5.5, Vaibhav Suri(5.5) bt Vishnu Prasanna V (4.5), Kravtsiv Martyn (5) bt Toth Christian Endre (Brazil) 4, Sethuraman S P (5) bt Girinath P D S (4), Debashis Das (5) bt Bitoon Richard (Philippines) 4, Gomez John Paul (Philippines) 5 bt Navin Kanna T U (4), Swayams Mishra (4.5) drew Venkatesh M R (4.5), Ghosh Diptayan (4)lost to Ma Qun (China) 5, Barua Dibyendu (4.5) drew Ramnath Bhuvanesh R (4.5), Konguvel Ponnuswamy (5) bt Thejkumar M S (4), Hoang Thanh Trang (Hungary) 5 bt Prakash G B (4), Lokesh P (4.5) drew Laxman R R (4.5), Phoobalan P (4) lost to Karthikeyan P (5), Zeng Chongsheng (China) 5 bt Mu Ke (China) 4, Deepan Chakkravarthy J (4.5) bt Sahu Vikramaditya (4), Kunal M (3.5) lost to Danielsen Henrik (Iceland) 4.5, Hemant Sharma (4) drew Paragua Mark (4).