Harikrishna wins easily;
takes sole lead

Grandmaster Pendyala Hariskrishna beat P Magesh Chandran to raise his tally to 9.5 points and emerge sole leader at the end of 12th round of Bharat Petroleum 39th National 'A' chess championship in Nagpur on Monday.

GM Dibyendu Barua, who drew his game with GM Abhijit Kunte, had to be content with a score of 9 points. He is in the second place and GM K Sasikiran, who was held by IM V Saravanan, is placed third with 8.5 points.

Harikrishna, playing white against Magesh Chandran, used the Catalan opening. After Chandran created a weakness on C6 square, all Harikrishna had to do was to utilise that. He did it in style, and giving Chandran no respite, steered the game into a rook and pawn ending, registering victory on the 61st move.

International Master Swati Ghate beat IM S S Ganguly. She played white and employed the Guico Piano opening. She sacrificed exchange and keeping her queen and bishop trained on Ganguly's 'g' pawn, winning on the 35th move.