JOIN USTop seed and International Master Stany GA scored a fine victory over Manjunath J to remain in joint lead in the Karnataka State Open FIDE-rated Chess Championship here on Monday.
Playing with white pieces, Shimoga’s Stany vanquished Manjunath J of Bangalore in 37 moves to gather five points from five rounds.
Staying on par with Stany are fellow IMs Himanshu Sharma, Sanjay N and Arvind Shastry, the final three notching up wins with black pieces. While Himanshu battled to a 74-move win over Vinayak Kulkarni, former State champion Sanjay crushed Santosh Kashyap in 21 moves and seasoned Arvind Shastry beat Sharan Rao in 39 moves. Important results (round 5): IM Stany GA (5) bt Manjunath J (4); Vinayak Kulkarni (4) lt to IM Himanshu Sharma (5); Santosh kashyap HG (4) lt to Sanjay N (5); Sharan Rao (4) lt to Arvind Shastry (5); Prachura PP (4.5) drew with Balkishan A (4.5); FM Joydeep Dutta (4.5) bt Shruthi K (3.5); Rajkumar Shrinjan Singha (4.5) bt Gavi Siddayya (3.5); Nikhilesh M Holla (3) lt to Kishan Gangolli (4); Ram Vishwanathan (3.5) drew with Raghavendra V (3.5); Shreeshan S (4) bt Nikhil Murugkar (3); Jatin SN (3.5) drew with Mandloi Mukesh (3.5); Raju M (3.5) drew with Shreyash A Kulkarni (3.5); Aditya Chakraborty (3) lt to Jagadish P (4); Ojas Kulkarni (3) lt to Siddharth Murali (4); WCM Sharanya Iyengar (3) lt to Raghuraman NR (4); Avi Jaiswal (4) bt Parthasarathy R (3); Arjun Adappa (4) bt Swathi Bhat (3); Panchami Shenoy K (3.5) drew with Vivekraj (3.5); Sudarshan Bhat (3) lt to Upendra K (4); Dhanush Bharadwaj (4) bt Charan Saravanan (3).