The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Humpy takes lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 04, 2006
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Chess

Humpy takes lead

Manuel Aaron

Doha: Koneru Humpy leads the women's Asian individual chess championship by half a point when the fourth to sixth rounds were played on Sunday.

At the end of the fifth round Humpy was leading by 1.5 points having beaten former World women's chess champion, Grandmaster Zhu Chen of Qatar. But in the sixth round she played uncharacteristically with the black pieces and lost to Chinese Woman Grandmaster Zhao Xue. Humpy has five points and is followed half a point behind by three players Zhao Xue, Pourkashian of Iran and Sukandar Kharisma of Indonesia.

In the fourth round Humpy beat Pourkashian in a chanceless game and in the fifth she played dazzling chess to outwin Zhu Chen.

Three in lead

In the men's section, Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam, Bu Xiangzhi of China and Murtan Kazhgaleyev of Kazakhstan are leading with five points each. Harikrishna lost to Wang Yue in the sixth round and is on 3.5 points. Sasikiran has not been able to win more than one game so far. In the fifth round he beat Samhouri of Jordan and has drawn the other five games. He also has 3.5 points.

Former World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan lost two games in a row tragically. In the fourth round he had a completely won position against Vietnam's Dao but hung a rook and lost. Three hours later when the fifth round began, the rook blunder still weighed on his mind and he lost to Megaranto of Indonesia.

The last three rounds of this Asian Rapid championship will be played on Monday.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport