Surya sole leader; Bitan steals show

Calcutta: GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly emerged sole leader with six points from as many rounds in the Tata Steel all-India Open chess meet on Saturday.

Ganguly outwitted two GMs ? Diyendu Barua and Sandipan Chanda ? on Saturday to sit pretty at the top. Deepan Chakravarthy of Tamil Nadu is in second place (5.5).

Stealing the show on the penultimate day was 11-year old Bitan Banerjee who upset national women’s champion WGM Nisha Mohota before beating IM Rahul Shetty.

In another significant result, Somak Palit held Barua to a creditable draw in a hard-fought game. Chakravarthy split the point with second seed GM Abhijit Kunte, Suman Basu beat IM Suvrajit Saha, Harish Sharma got the better of IM M.R. Venkatesh and Anirban Guha Roy outclassed IM R.R. Laxman.

GM Sandipan Chanda managed to beat Lanka Ravi.