This Article is written by Professor Anantha Ram, Incharge Media Coverage Chennai Open and International Arbiter.
Former under age category national champion R. Sidharth of Tamil Nadu displayed a giant killing act defeating Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh in the fifth round of the Chennai Open 2010 International chess tournament sponsored by LIC of India and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and organised by Sports Promotion Foundation at the Multipurpose Indoor Stadium, Chennai today. He and the second seeded grandmaster Maxim Turov of Russia are leading with a cent per cent score. Thirteen players are trailing behind with 4.5 points each. Six more rounds remain to be played.

Photo of A.P.Player Mehar Chinna Reddy!
Siddharth today proved that his increase in rating by 105 points in three months last year was not a flash in the pan. The engineering student pursuing his MS degree in US played a patient waiting game and overcame Ziaur by positional play. His pair of knights played havoc to rattle the opponent and in the end, he had three pawns, of which two were connected, in comparison to the isolated pawns of Ziaur. Siddharth won the game in 49 moves.

Maxim won the English opening comfortably against Oliver Dimakiling of Philippines using his powerful connected pawns at the centre. Mehar Chenna Reddy claimed honours when he won the queen and pawn ending against experienced R.R. Laxman, the grandmaster representing ICF. The national Blitz champion Lakshman lost a pawn first and another pawn later. When Mehar was about to queen his pawn, Laxman resigned. Overnight joint leaders Anwesh Upadyaya of Orissa and Ankit Rajpara of Gujarat were content with draws against grandmaster Marat Azhumaev of Uzbekistan and IM Richard Bitoon of Philippines to stay in contention for their IM norms.

Eshan Ghaem Maghami of Iran, the top seed had his third draw in five rounds, this time against former under 14 national champion T.U. Navin Kanna of Tamil Nadu. Grandmasters Dmitry Kryakvin of Russia, Alexander Zubraev of Ukraine, Sundarrajan Kidambi and Deepan Chakkaravarthy of PSPB, Andrey Gutov of Russia and Manik Mikulas had a field day today, scoring easy win. G.V. Sai Krishna, under 13 national champion in 2008 caused a flutter by defeating former national champion P. Konguvel of PSPB. Six times national woman champion S. Vijayalaksmi settled for a draw with T.J. Suresh Kumar of ICF.