Nitin maintains sole lead

Report by I.A Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Overnight sole leader International Master S Nitin maintained his lead with a perfect score after defeating compatriot Visakh NR in the fifth round of the Commonwealth Chess Championship at Hotel Leela Ambience Convention Hotel, New Delhi.

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Nitin was a class act on Saturday morning with his white pieces against Visakh in a Sicilian defence game. He put enormous pressure on the kingside of his rival in the middle game after queenside castling to secure the victory after 51 moves.

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In other important fifth round encounters, Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri defeated Grandmaster RR Laxman while Debashis Das outwitted Meghna CH and International Master Karthik Venkataraman got better off K Ratnakaran.

Vaibhav, Debashis, Karthik along with Sankalp Gupta and G Akash are sharing the second spot with four and half points. Sankalp put it across Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna while former national champion G Akash defeated Grandmaster Tejas Bakre.

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There was no dearth for surprises in the fifth round also as Fide Master Thilakarathne GMH of Sri Lanka stunned Grandmaster Swapnil Dhopade while Priyanka K outwitted Women Grandmaster Mary Ann Gomes.

Incidentally, top-seeded Grandmaster Deep Sengupta celebrated his birthday with team D.C.A during the Championship.

Pairings/Results

Round 5 on 2018/06/30 at 09:30 hrs