Sharma moves into sole lead

IM Himanshu Sharma has emerged the sole leader by the halfway stage in the Parsvnath Commonwealth Chess Championship in progress here . He managed this today with a surprise win over fancied Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh and now has 5 points from as many rounds. He leads the 282-player field by margin of half-a-point.

Reefat Bin-Sattar, Parimarjan Negi, V Kamble and S Arun Prasad were following the leader, each on 4.5 points.

On the second board, top-seeded Surya Sekhar Ganguly was pitted against experienced IM Alex Wohl of Australia who had little problem in parrying Ganguly8217;s moves. After the exchange of most of the pieces by move 34, the players signed peace treaty. In a day of upsets, second seeded GM Jones Gawain of England was shocked by IM Arun Prasad. A big group of 27-players are sharing the third spot with a score of 4 points.