Barua (above) and Negi

Vlissingen (The Netherlands): Parimarjan Negi yet again came up with a brilliant performance to beat International Master Koen Leenhouts of Holland and moved to joint lead after the end of the fifth round of the Hogeschool Zeeland International chess tournament here.

The five-member Indian contingent had a good day in the nine-rounds Swiss tournament with GM Dibyendu Barua still maintaining his joint lead even after settling for a draw with top seed GM Mikhail Gurevich of Turkey.

IM Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury and IM in waiting Saptarshi Roy registered easy victories over Dutchmen Plukkel Sjoerd and Haak Eelko respectively. IM Roktim Bandyopadhyay was held by another local hopeful Frans Wolferink.

With four rounds remaining in the tournament, the lead is now shared by as many as nine players with 4.5 points apiece.

They are second seed Michal Krasenkow of Poland, GM Sergey Erenburg of Israel, GMs Friso Nijboer and Erwin L’ami from Holland, GM Vyacheslav Ikonnikov of Russia, GM Li Shilong of China, IM Thomas Henrichs of Germany, Barua and Negi.

As many as 22 players including Roy Chowdhury and Roy share the 10th spot with four points each in their kitty while Bandyopadhyay is in the next group, having earned 3.5 points so far.

World’s youngest GM, Negi’s game was nearly one sided as Leenhouts was outwitted quite early in a Ruy Lopez game.

Having recently added Ruy Lopez as black in his opening repertoire, Negi was up against a Worrel attack and got a good position in the middle game when Leenhouts failed to strike upon the right plan.

Getting a lot of play on the Queen Side, Parimarjan forced Leenhouts queen on the edge of the board and later masterminded a fine trick to trap the queen with his two knights. Leenhouts was conquered in just 30 moves.

Barua played the white side of a Pirc Defense and had Gurevich in some troubles in the middle game after the players charted on less trodden paths right from the early stages of the middle game.

Playing skillfully, Barua had the center under absolute control and Gurevich sensed some troubles before sacrificing a piece on the 16th move to get the desired counter play.

Barua had to find some correct moves thereafter and after the complexities ended, the Indian had two minor pieces in the resulting endgame against Gurevich’s rook and an extra pawn.

Normally such positions favour the player having rook, and barua rightly sacrificed his extra material at the first opportunity to reach a level bishops and pawns endgame.

The result of the game was never in doubt from this stage and the players signed peace after 57 moves, when both had successfully promoted their pawns to new queens.

In the sixth round game, Negi has been pitted against GM Konstantin Landa of Russia while Barua is set to play Erwin L’ami.