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Grandmaster Koneru Humpy won her fourth game in a row when she outplayed Sergey Kayumov of Uzbekistan in the fifth round of the 5th Asian Chess Championship being played here at the Yousufguda Stadium here at Hyderabad on October 10.
Zhang Zhong and Li Shilong of China moved to joint lead with 4.5 points with hard earned fifth round victories. Zhang had Wang Hao choked for space. When Wang tried to extricate himself he overlooked a knight fork by Zhang. In the second table, Li Shilong won a pawn in the middlegame and ensured that he put it to work in the ending to upset higher rated Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam.
Five players are tied for the third place and it includes Koneru Humpy of Vijayawada and Neelotpal Das of ONGC, Kolkata. Both have four points and are in company with Ni Hua, Zhou Jianchao (both Chn) and Susanto Megaranto (Ina).
Neelotpal Das drew his second game in a row in 50 moves but slid from lead after holding GM Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia. "I was under pressure and the position was not favourable to me," said Neelotpal Das despite having a protected passed pawn in a rook ending. Neelotpal hopes to do well and is looking for his final grandmaster norm from this event. He made two GM norms at Sort Open and Benasque, both in Spain this summer. About his fourth round game, Neelotpal Das said both players were short of time and it was not worthy to take risk.
Kidambi's aggressive play helped him defeat top seed Sasikiran with a knight sacrifice. In a Slav Defence, Meran variation, Kidambi explored a lively line and managed to `surprise' Sasikiran. Sasikiran should not have accepted the sacrifice was the general assessment of their postmortem analysis. However, by taking the bait, black could survive but not under practical realities and this speedy time control said the winner. Kidambi of Bharat Petroleum, Chennai is in good form and has increased his chances of making the top ten here. This result however leaves Sasikiran in the dock and would be required to win several games to make lost ground. Both Sasikiran and Kidambi are Chennai buddies and also trained together at one time.
Koneru Humpy should thank her opponent for creating the opening for her on the 19th turn. The positional pawn sacrifice by Sergey Kayumov gave chances for both sides. Humpy played the modern defence with the black pieces. In every complicated tactic Humpy came up trumps and was about to mop the white queen's side pawns when resignation came.
Grandmaster R.B.Ramesh started well but went down in a rook and minor piece ending depite having an extra pawn. Pavel Kotsur outplayed him in 51 moves. In the other games of interest, Sadvakasov sacrificed a rook and knight to humble Dzhumaev in just 21 moves. Ni Hua played enterprisingly to down team-mate Zhao Jun of China. Ghaem Maghami of Iran sidestepped a stalemate trap by Enamul Hossain (Ban) to win.
Tuesday is a rest day and play will resume on Wednesday. Four rounds remain to be played in this continental championship from which the top ten players will qualify for the World Cup.
For complete results please visit
http://www.asianchess2005.com/hyd/r4.htm
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