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 Grandmaster Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia stopped Koneru Humpy's winning streak by inflicting an attacking 34-move victory with the black pieces in the sixth round of the 5th Asian Chess Championship being played at the Yousufguda Indoor Stadium on Wednesday.
Megaranto joined Zhang Zhong and Li Shilong of China in the lead with five points from six rounds. Three rounds remain to be played in this USD 32,500 prize money event.
Overall, Indians had a dismal day losing in most of the upper boards. Chinese played continued to dominate the show. Only Neelotpal Das who took a quick 12-move draw with the white pieces against GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran moved to joint third place with 4.5 points.
 Sundararajan Kidambi who is looking for both a place in the World Cup and also a grandmaster norm suffered an unexpected defeat at the hands of the experienced Xu Jun. Kidambi tossed a knight sacrifice to seize the initiative but Xu Jun handled it well and won a rook for bishop advantage. Kidambi went down fighting in a long game.
Qualifying tournaments have the problem of quick agreed draws. The first board saw a six move draw being agreed by the two overnight leaders Zhang Zhong and Li Shilong. However, on board two, Ni Hua fought hard against a fellow Chinese before ceding a draw in 50 moves in a bishop ending.
It is confirmed that ten players from this event will advance to the 128-player World Cup to be held at Khanty-Mansyisk in Russia from November 26 to December 18. Two players, Viswanathan Anand (by rating) and Pentala Harikrishna (World U-20 champion) are seeded. The Indian sub-continent zone championship has not been held and there is one qualifier seat for that. It has been decided that the best among the non-qualifiers from our zone in this championship will get that zonal seat.
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