Grandmaster Pentyala Harikrishna surged to the top of the standings with a crushing victory over GM Jonathan Rowson of Scotland in the sixth round of Gibtelecom Masters International Open Chess Congress at Gibraltar.
The third successive win helped Harikrishna catch up with overnight leader Sandipan Chanda for the leading position with five points.
Also sharing the lead with the two Indians was top seed and hot favourite English GM Nigel Short who defeated Surya Shekhar Ganguly on the top board.
Close on the heels of the trio were second seed Alexei Dreev of Russia, Jonathan Speelman of England, British Open Champion Abhijit Kunte and Ganguly with 4.5 points each.
Just four rounds remain in this 12,000-Euro prize money tournament that has the winner's purse of 4000 Euros.
After some real power-packed performance in the first half of the tournament, the 11-player Indian contingent had mixed results on Sunday.
Sandipan Chanda played well to hold Dreev, Abhijit Kunte raised visions of making it to the top by beating higher rated GM Sarunas Sulskis of Lithuania, Tejas Bakre remained in contention for his final GM norm by holding GM Bogdan Lalic of England and Dibyendu Barua signed truce with Spaniard Juan Bellon Lopez.
Among the women, S Vijayalakshmi suffered a loss at the hands of Joseph Gallagher of Switzerland while Swati Ghate also went down to Briton Nigel Davies.
The remaining three Indians, S Meenakshi, Nisha Mohota and Kruttika Nadig earned a draw.
After an uncharacteristic loss to Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria in the first round, Harikrishna bounced back with a vengeance to play some incredible chess in the later rounds.
Against Rowson, Harikrishna opened with the Slav defence and soon equalized comfortably. His opponent failed to get anything worthwhile in the early middle game where the Indian won an exchange with precise piece-play.
Accurate play then rewarded Harikrishna with a queen and pawns endgame and he made no mistakes thereafter to romp home after 62 moves.
Ganguly lost in his pet Arkhengelsk variation with black pieces. During the World Cup in 2002 at Hyderabad too Short had scored a convincing victory over him in the same opening and this time also the story remained the same.
Caught in the middle game with his knight stranded on the edge of the board, Ganguly found some solace in a queen sacrifice for two pieces but his positional problems continued to linger. Short wrapped the issue 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 against the Caro Kann.
The middle game had all the ingredients of an exciting battle after Sandipan sacrificed a pawn on the king side to launch an attack against the king.
Dreev was equally up to the task in working out his counter play through exchanges and eventually parted with his queen for two pieces along with two dangerous looking passed pawns. However Sandipan spotted a fine trick in the endgame to force a draw vide repetition of moves.
Important results, round 6 (Indians unless specified):
Nigel Short (5, Eng) beat Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4.5); Sandipan Chanda (5) drew with Alexei Dreev (4.5, Rus); Jonathan Rowson (3.5, Sco) lost to P Harikrishna (5); Peter Wells (4, Eng) drew with Ernesto Inarkiev (4, Rus); Abhijit Kunte (4.5) beat Sarunas Sulskis (3.5, Ltu); Jonathan Speelman (4.5, Eng) beat Mohamad Al Sayed (3.5, Qat); Antoaneta Stefanova (4, Bul) drew with Mark Hebden (4, Eng); Tejas Bakre (4) drew with Bogdan Lalic (4, Eng); Sergei Beshukov (4, Rus) beat Till Wipperman (3.5, Ger); Vladimir Epishin (4, Rus) beat Ruslan Pogorelov (3, Rus); Tatiana Vasilevich (4, Ukr) beat Alexey Kuzmin (3, Rus); Dibyendu Barua (3.5) drew with Juan Bellon Lopez (3.5, Esp); Joseph Gallagher (4, Sui) beat S Vijayalakshmi (3); David Howell (3.5, Eng) drew with Bojan Vuckovic (3.5, Ser); Murray Chandler (3.5, Eng) drew with Colin Mcnab (3.5, Sco); Swati Ghate (3) lost to Nigel Davies (4, Eng); Pia Cramling (3.5, Swe) drew with Aarakhamia-Grant Ketevan (3, Geo); S Meenakshi (3) drew with Chris Ward (3, Eng); John Shaw (3, Sco) drew with Nisha Mohota (3); Thomas Heyl (2.5, Ger) drew with Kruttika Nadig (2.5).
