Humpy, Harika continue to lead

Overnight leaders, top seed Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika played out a draw and continued to lead with five points each while China's Xu Yuanyuan beat WGM S Vijayalakshmi to take the joint second spot after the sixth round in the 10th Asian women's chess championship in Kozikhode on Friday.

Xu Yuanyuan shares the second spot with compatriot Zhao Xue, on 4.5 points each.

In the only major upset of the day, India's Bhagyashree Thipsay beat third seed Wang Pin (CHN) in a Caro Kann opening in 34 moves.

Playing on the top-board, Harika used the English opening against WGM Humpy and went for a Queen exchange on the eighth move to gain a Knight. However, Humpy did not allow her rival to gain further leeway and maintained equal position thereafter to force a draw on the 44th move.

Adopting the Nimzo-Indian defence, Vijayalakshmi secured initial advantage after going in for an exchange up in the eighth move. However, the Chennai girl made some wrong moves and could not protect her Kingside. Vijayalakshmi resigned after 28 moves.

The all-Chinese affair involving Xue and Gu Xiaobing proved to be a marathon game which extended for 90 moves. Although Xiaobing enjoyed a slight advantage in the middle game, she soon committed a blunder and ultimately lost the game.

In other matches, Zhang Jilin and Wang Yu (both of China) agreed to split points while Aarthie Ramaswamy also settled for a draw with Vietnamese Le Kieu Thien Kim.

However, another Vietnamese Hoang Thanh Trang beat Swati Ghate to take her tally to four points and gain the third spot along with Vijayalakshmi, Jilin, Yu and Kim.

Kazakhstan's lone representative, Maria Sergeeva managed to move up to 3.5 points after defeating J E Kavitha, while Sri Lanka's solitary player, Vineetha Wijesuriya, lost to S Meenakshi to finish down the table.

Defending champion, China's Li Ruofan, did not take chances and agreed for a draw against compatriot Huang Qian to ensure 3.5 points to the duo.

K Lakshmi Praneetha continued to be the only player yet to open her account in the tournament after she lost again, this time to Malinicheva Lidiya (UZB).