Humpy, Krasenkow share joint lead

Fri, May 16 12:40 AM

Polish Grandmaster Michal Krasenkow and India's Koneru Humpy, the top two seeds, made their move at the Mumbai Mayor's Cup International Open Chess Tournament on Friday. The two strongest GMs in the fray recorded twin wins on the last double-round day of the tournament and were sharing the lead with 6.5 points at the end of the seventh round of the event co-sponsored by LIC. Humpy defeated B.T. Murali Krishnan and GM Safin Shukhrat of Uzbekistan in the sixth and seventh round respectively, while Krasenkow accounted for overnight joint leader M.S. Thej Kumar and Bangladeshi GM Reefat Bin-Sattar.

Uzbekistan GM Safin Sukhrat had his ecstasy of taking sole lead after the sixth round tempered by the agony of a defeat in the next. Shukhrat beat Bangladesh's Abdulla Al-Rakib in the sixth round to take sole lead.

But his joy proved short lived as Humpy made him pay for a mistake in the middle game to hand him a comprehensive defeat. IM M.R. Venkatesh was the star of the day as he logged 1.5 points from two games to move up to six points from seven games.

He stunned Polish GM Bartlomeij Macieja and then went on to hold Indian GM and fifth-seed Abhijit Kunte. Macieja overcame the setback to beat J. Ramakrishna in the seventh round.

At the end of the seventh round, Humpy and Krasenkow were followed by a group of eight players including Shukhrat, Kunte, Venkatesh, Abdulla Al-Rakib, Ziaur Rehman, R.B. Ramesh and Tejas Bakre on 5.5 points.

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