Madurai, July 26: Top seed GB Prakash of Indian Bank and International Master V Koshy of ONGC continue to lead the field with 5.5 after drawing their individual encounter at the end of the sixth round of the 35th Mappilai Vinayagar International Rating chess tournament being played here.The experienced International Master from ONGC adopted his favourite modern defence and reached an early end-game when Prakash (5.5) exchanged queens very early on the sixth move. The top seed from Chennai tried very hard for a breakthrough but Koshy's (5.5) experience sailed him to an equal rook and pawns ending. Peace treaty was signed after 30 moves.
Kerala champion MB Muralidharan (5) was held to a draw by K Chakraborty of Salem. Playing white side of the Sicilian defence Chakraborty went for Muralidharan's King right from the start.
Results (6th round): GB Prakash (5.5) drew with V Koshy (5.5), K Chakraborty (5) drew with MB Muralidharan (5), MK Alaguraja (4) lost to RB Ramesh (5), N Sanjay(5) bt P Arokiaraj(4) Murugacheran (4.5) drew K Haridas (4.5), L Narasimhan (4.5) drew TK Chandrasekar (4.5), AL Kasi (4) drew with Praveen Kumar (4.5) R Mohammed (3.5) lost to Arvind Shastry (4.5), K Ravichandran (3.5) lost to KS Raghavan(4.5), A Gokhale (4.5) bt Kirubhakaran(3.5).
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
