Top seed Grandmaster Koneru Humpy settled for a short draw with Wang Yu of China in the sixth round of the 19th World junior girls' chess championship to hold on to joint second position even as Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia joined Chinese WGM Zhao Zue at the top, in Panaji, Goa, on Thursday.
Kosintseva joined Xue at the top of the table with a 42-move victory over Ioulia Makka of Greece. Both Xue and Kosintseva have five points each and are followed by four players -- the Russian duo of Nadezhda Kosintseva and Natalia Pogonina, Wang Yu and Humpy, with 4.5 points each.
Humpy was involved in a quick 17-move draw with Yu in a Petroff defence game where the Chinese played white. Not
trying for any real advantage out of the opening, Yu took the draw vide a repetition of moves.
In other matches, Xue tried hard but did not succeed in breaking the solid defence of Nadezhda with her white pieces. The opening was a Leningrad Dutch and the peace treaty was signed after 41 moves.
Meanwhile, the Indian boys continued to trail Grandmaster Luke McShane of England, who remained atop the table with a draw against top seed Grandmaster BU Xiangzhi of China in the fifth round.
McShane has 4.5 points from his five games and is closely followed by Levon Aronian of Armenia, Vladimir Potkin of
Russia, Ni Hua of China and Sergei Azarov of Belarus with 4 points apiece.
GM Pendyala Harikrishna, GM-in-waiting Surya Shekhar Ganguly, International Master Neelotpal Das, double GM norm holder Sandipan Chanda and S Satyapragyan are among 13 players in the next point-group with 3.5 points each in their kitty.
On the top board, McShane played a solid game with white pieces in one of the preferred variations of his country-mate Super GM Michael Adams. Up against a Sicilian, McShane chose the closed set-up and it was quite clear that he was not interested in a complicated tussle.
Bu Xiangzhi, once the youngest GM in the world, tried to make some headway on the queenside with routine pawn roller but realised that white had adequate resources on the other flank. The result was a peace proposal on the 19th move by the Chinese that was turned down but five moves later McShane himself suggested a draw result that was accepted after some thought.