Facile win for Surya Shekar Ganguly

Aiming for a fifth successive title, Ganguly played a solid game against joint leader Tejas Bakre, who opted for the Ruy Lopez opening.

Four-time National champion Surya Shekar Ganguly scored a facile win over Indian Airlines GM Tejas Bakre to lead with five points after the sixth round of the Velammal National 'A' Chess championship on Friday.

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Aiming for a fifth successive title, Ganguly played a solid game against joint leader Tejas Bakre, who opted for the Ruy Lopez opening.

After exchanging queens on the 34th move when Ganguly was about to mop up the queenside pawns, Bakre resigned.

Nisha Mohota of PSPB scored her first win of the tournament over former National sub-junior champion R Ashwath of Tamil Nadu.

In a Ruy Lopez game, the International Master from the host school, S P Sethuraman defeated Rahul Shetty of Indian Airlines in 58 moves.

Rahul had several combinations, leading to a draw, but missed them, only to lose.

Former National champion GM Pravin Thipsay was almost checkmated by Suvrajit Saha of Indian Railways in 28 moves.

Another Railways player K Ratnakaran lost to Sudhakar Babu of BSB, who had well connected pawns in the end game.