Sandipan stays in the front pack

Gibraltar: GM P. Harikrishna beat GM Jonathan Rowson of Scotland to join the leaders after the sixth round of the Gibraltar chess meet on Monday.

Harikrishna moved to five points, the same as GM Sandipan Chanda and top-seeded English GM Nigel Short. Overnight joint leader Surya Sekhar Ganguly lost to Short to stay on 4.5. Second seed Alexei Dreev of Russia, Jonathan Speelman of England and GM Abhijit Kunte are also on 4.5.

It was a mixed day for the 11-strong Indian contingent. Sandipan played a creditable draw against Dreev, while Kunte beat the higher-rated GM Sarunas Sulskis of Lithuania.

Tejas Bakre remained in contention for his third GM norm by holding GM Bogdan Lalic of England and Dibyendu Barua drew with Spaniard Juan Bellon Lopez.

S. Vijayalakshmi suffered a loss against GM Joseph Gallagher of Switzerland, while Swati Ghate went down to British GM Nigel Davies. S. Meenakshi, Nisha Mohota and Kruttika Nadig drew their games.

Harikrishna has had a great tournament after having lost to Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria in the first round. Against Rowson, Harikrishna opened with the Slav Defence and equalised comfortably. His opponent failed to force anything worthwhile in the middle-game where the Indian won an exchange.

Harikrishna played accurately after that and made no mistake in the queen-and-pawns endgame to win after 62 moves.

Surya lost in his pet Arkhengelsk Variation with black pieces. At the World Cup in 2002 in Hyderabad, Short had scored an identical win over the Indian and even this time, there was no change in the script.

Caught awkwardly in the middle-game with his knight stranded on the edge of the board, Surya tried to fight back with a queen sacrifice for two pieces but his positional problems continued to linger. Short pocketed the point in just 35 moves.

Sandipan was up against a Caro Kann with white pieces and played imaginatively to split the point with Dreev who opted for a popular system. The middle-game had all the ingredients of an exciting battle after Sandipan had sacrificed a pawn on the king-side to launch an attack.