Koneru Humpy suffered her second loss in the tournament. — Photo: H. Satish

HYDERABAD: Chinese Grandmasters Li Shilong and Zhang Zhong were joined by Indonesian Susanto Megaranto at the top with five points each at the end of the sixth round in the fifth Asian individual open chess championship here on Wednesday. However, Susanto took the joint lead after the Indonesian beat India's GM Koneru Humpy.

Shilong and Zhong settled for a quick, six-move draw. In Czech Benoni defence, Humpy was surprised by the tenacity of her opponent, who wriggled out of a crisis in the opening game. Strangely, Humpy slipped into time pressure and her Nc4 on the 29th move proved to be a big blunder. After that she had little chance of recovering as Susanto ensured that there were no escape routes. Humpy had to be content with four points after two losses in six rounds.

Pleasantly surprised

GM Dibyendu Barua was pleasantly surprised when 15-year-old WGM Dronavalli Harika gifted away her game in Reti Benoni Defence. For someone who had an edge over Barua, the Guntur girl had to blame herself by playing Qg4 on the 28th move. Soon she lost a piece and Barua seized on the chance to wrap up the game. "I was lucky to win the game today," he said. IM M.R. Venkatesh held the top seed and GM Krishnan Sasikiran in Ruy Lopez Opening after 69 moves.

In another sixth round game, Neelotpal Das earned a creditable draw against GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran.

The results (Indians unless mentioned): Sixth round: Li Shilong (Chn) drew with Zhang Zhong (Chn) 5-5; Jianchao Zhou (Chn) drew with Hua Ni (Chn) 4.5-4.5; Koneru Humpy lost to Susanto Megaranto (Ina) 4-5; Neelotpal Das drew with Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri) 4.5-4; Ziaur Rehman (Ban) lost to Darmen Sadvakasov (Kaz) 3.5-4.5; Surya Sekhar Ganguly lost to Murtas Kazhgaleyev (Kaz) 3.5-4.5; Pavel Kotsur (Kaz) bt Hao Wang (Chn) 4.5-3.5; Sundararajan Kidambi lost to Jun Xu (Chn) 3.5-4.5; Yue Wang (Chn) bt Anton Filippov (Uzb) 4.5-3.5; Hai Thien Dao (Vie) drew with Orazly Annageldyev (Tkm) 4-4; Sandipan Chanda lost to Sergey Kayumov (Uzb) 3-4; Abhijit Kunte drew with Rui Wang (Chn) 3.5-3.5; Dung Anh Nguyen (Vie) drew with Karen Grigoryan (Tkm) 3.5-3.5; Wenjin Wu (Chn) bt Al-Rakib Abdulla (Ban) 4-3; Shaoteng Yu (Chn) bt Meilis Annaberdiev (Tkm) 4-3; Jun Zhao (Chn) bt Lanka Ravi 4-3; Mohammad Al-Modiahki (Qat) bt Himanshu Sharma 3.5-3; M.R. Venkatesh drew with Krishnan Sasikiran 3-3; Pavel Gnusarev (Kaz) bt Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb) 3.5-2.5; Morteza Mahjoob (Iri) lost to Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) 2.5-3.5; Abhijeet Gupta drew with R.B. Ramesh 3-3; Reefat Bin-Sattar (Ban) drew with J. Deepan Chakravarthy 3-3; Enamul Hossain (Ban) bt Gogineni Rohit (Ind) 3.5-2.5; Dronavalli Harika lost to Dibyendu Barua 2.5-3.5; B.S. Sivanandan drew with S. Poobesh Anand 3-3; Jayson Gonzales (Phi) bt Vishal Sareen 3.5-2.5; Moussa Taleb (UAE) lost to Roktim Bandyopadhyay 2-3.5; P. Konguvel bt Tejas Bakre 3-2; D.P. Singh drew with Weiqi Zhou (Chn) 2.5-2.5; S. Satyapragyan lost to Valay Parikh 2-3; Sergei Simonenko (Tkm) lost to Mohsen Sharbaf (Iri) 2-3; R.R. Laxman bt K. Dinesh Sharma 3-2; Wendi George Xie (Aus) bt Deep Sen Gupta 3-2; Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury drew with Omar Ak Hirawan (Bru) 2.5-2.5; G.N. Gopal drew with Arghyadip Das 2-2; Mokal M. Sunil drew with Dasari Sai Srinivas 2-2; Weng-Yee Lim (Mas) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu 2-2; V. Saravanan lost to K. Visweswaran 1.5-2.5; G. Lucky Stephen (Nzl) lost to Somak Palit 1.5-2.5; Yogesh Gore drew with P.D.S. Girinath 1.5-1.5; J. Ramakrishna lost to Suvrajit Saha 1-2; S. Rishipal Singh drew with Mohd. Omar (Bru) 1-1.5; K. Ramu bye Atanu Lahiri 1.5-0.5.

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