Koneru Humpy loses in Commonwealth Chess

New Delhi: Grandmaster Koneru Humpy had a bad day in office as she lost to International Master Himanshu Sharma from a winning position in the fourth round of Commonwealth Chess Championship here yesterday.

Humpy, after attaining a winning position, did not know the time control in-force and was declared lost on time after her time ran out. Humpy said that she was not aware of the rules.

It may be recalled that Tania Sachdev had lost in similar fashion in the first round. Meanwhile, top seed Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta got lucky as his opponent Ramnath Bhuvnesh forgot to press his clock in the final moments of the game to lose on time as well.

After attaining a decent position, Gupta mishandled and was a pawn less in a drawable endgame when disaster struck Bhuvnesh. Gupta and Himanshu Sharma share the lead with five others in one of the strongest ever Commonwealth Championships.

Grandmaster Sahaj Grover remained in the leaders' group after defeating International Master S Nitin. From a Sicilian defense, Grover got a strong attack after quick development and did not let his advantage slip in the middle game.

Bangladeshi Grandmaster Niaz Murshed is the only non-Indian in the leading pack with his fourth victory in the tournament, which came at the expense of young Saurabh Anand.

Murshed was at the top of his game in this round as he outclassed Anand in all departments of the game. Grandmasters Murali Karthikeyan, M R Lalith Babu and International Master Arghyadip Das are the other Indian players sharing the lead.