SANGLI, May 16: Former National sub-junior champion TS Ravi (5.5) of IOC trounced overnight leader N Sudhakar Babu (5) of Indian Bank in the sixth round of S K Vaidya memorial International Chess Tournament here today.

Third seeded Ravi now shares the lead with Rahul Shetty (Indian Airlines) and RK Mishra (Madhya pradesh).

Ravi sacrificed a pawn to initiate an attack on Babu's King in the Spanish Opening. Babu unnessarily went in hunt for a pawn and misplaced his pieces in the process. He resigned on 45th move when faced with unavoidable checkmate.

Shetty (5.5) of Indian Airlines defeated V Sarvanan (4.5) of Bharat Petroleum in just 23 moves of King Pawn game. Shetty obtained a winning attack following his pawn gambit and checkmated Sarvanan with a piece sacrifice.

RK Mishra (5.5) of MP shocked former National champions Syed Nasir Ali (4.5) of UP in 37 moves of Sicilian Defence. Mishra attacked Nasir's King and delivered a checkmate when the veteran failed to counter it.

Roktim Bandopadyay (5) of West Bengal shocked International Master Arun Vaidya (4) of Maharashtra in just 23 moves of Bogo-Indian defence. However, another teenager Manthan Choksi (4) of Gujarat went down to Kiran Panditrao (5) without much fight in 40 moves of Sicilian Defence.

P Konguvel (5) of ONGC had a miraculous escape when Vivek Shukla (4) of UP failed to take advantage of his extra pawn and lost tamely in endgame arising out of Sicilian Defence. National women champion Anupama Gokhale (4) of Bharat Petrolcum outplayed Srikant Deshpande (3) of Maharashtra in 20 moves of Queens Gambit.

RESULTS: P Konguvel (5) bt Vivek Shukla (4), Atanu Lahiri (4) lost to GB Prakash (5), V Koshy (4) lost to N Sanjay (5), Neelotpal Das (5) bt Ravi Hegde (4), A Bartakke (4) lost to Jayant Gokhale (5), Arun Vaidya (4) lost to R Bandopadhyay (5), Manthan Choksi (4) lost to K Panditrao (5), N Neelakantan (4) lost to Moti Ram (5), Kumar Mane (4) lost to R Balasubramanian (5), Prakash Golecha (4) lost to Sharad Tilak (5), Sajandas Joshi (4.5) bt S Khedekar (3.5), Anupama Gokhale (4) bt S Deshpande (3) and Mrunalini Kunte (3.5) draw D Ravishankar (3.5).

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