National ‘A’ player Aravind Shastry and Sivanandan B S garnered five points each to emerge joint leaders after the fifth round in the FIDE-rated State chess championship conducted by the Malleswaram Association here on Thursday.
Playing with white pieces Sivanandan outwitted Girish A Koushik while Shastry outclassed Anil K Shetty to break away from the chasing pack at the end of the fifth round.
Sriram Sarja and Stany G A played out a draw in the fifth round to be half a point behind the leaders.
Earlier in the fourth round, Shetty caused the biggest upset of the day when he scored over top seed and defending champion N Sanjay dealing severe blow to his chances of retaining the title.
Sanjay blundered on the 21st move and Shetty cashed in to post a significant victory.
Results (5th round):
Sivanandan BS (5) bt Girish A Koushik (4), Sriram Sarja (4.5) drew with Stany GA (4.5), Anil S Shetty (4) lt to Aravinda Shastry (5); Prachura PP (3.5) lt to Thejkumar MS (4.5), Manjunath J (3.5) lt to Vijendra YG (4.5), Sanjay N (4) bt Shruthi K (3.5), Suraj M (4) bt Shristi J Shetty (3), Upendra K (4) bt Gavisiddayya (3), Nagesh R (4) bt Gautam JK (3), Anjan H (3) lt to Yashah D (4), Priyanka S (3) lt to Bharadwaj HG (4), Vishwas Saralaya (4) bt Arjun Anchan (3), Dasari Dattatraya Rao (3) lt to Niranjan Navalgund (4), Salil (3) lt to Prakash V Rao (4), Sushrutha Reddy (4) bt Shashank Benadikar (3), Sameer Ghotane (3) lt to Raju M (4).
Sanjay Sindhia MH (4) bt Shreshan S (3), Sridhar R (4) bt Gahan MG (3), Srinivas J (3) lt to Balkishen A (4), Vinayak Kulkarni (3) lt to Sunil Kulkarni (4), Karthik HS (4) bt Sudhish M (3), Darshan VPS (3.5) drew with Varun DB (3.5), Manasa K (4) bt Venkatesh Upadhya TV (3).
Fourth round: Sanjay N (3) lt to Anil S Shetty (4), Gautam JK (3) lt to Sivanandan BS (4), Yashas D (3) lt to Sriram Sarja (4), Aravinda Shastry (4) bt Manasa K (3), Shruthi K (3.5) drew with Manjunath J (3.5), Sunil Kulkarni (3) lt to Girish A Koushik (4), Stany GA (4) bt Nagesh R (3), Thejkumar MS (3.5) bt Srinivas J (3), Vijendra YG (3.5) bt Deepak Kumar Payeng (2.5), Venkatasubramani P (2.5) lt to Prachura PP (3.5).