Vishnu Prasanna beats Halkias

Fri, Aug 13 10 10:52 PM

From Our Chess Correspondent Chalkida (Greece) Aug 13 (PTI) Birthday boy Vishnu Prasanna made a giant stride toward his International Master title, defeating Grandmaster Stelios Halkias in the fourth round of first negroponte International Chess tournament here. Vishnu had made his final IM norm in the Kavala International open, less than a week before and there are only a few rating points now that separate him and the IM title. The youngster was in top form and won a clean game against Halkias to move to 3.5 points out of a possible four. At the top of the tables, Suat Atalik of Turkey, Zaven Andriasian of Armenia, Athanasios Mastrovasilis of Greece and Robert Hess of United States emerged as joint leaders with a perfect score. Vishnu Prasanna and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta are in the group of 12-players with 3.5 points in their kitty while Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda and D Harika are amongst those who have 3 points each. Prasanna faced an irregular queen pawn game against Halkias. Playing black, Prasanna followed the basics and broke the center early and Halkias had no solutions to the enormous on-board problems that ensued. The finale was a picturesque sight as Vishnu put his queen en prise to force resignation. In another game, Ganguly was held to a draw by veteran Grandmaster Oleg Romanishin of Ukraine who is also going to be the trainer of the Indian women team for the forthcoming chess Olympiad in Russia. Ganguly employed the Queen pawn opening and faced the Nimzo Indian defense wherein he won an exchange but ROmanishin always had compensation. Ganguly''s draw proposal in a dangerous position was accepted by the Ukrainian who later sighted the lack of time on his clock as the reason behind his decision. Harika missed a golden opportunity to increase her final GM norm chance as she let top seed Denis Khismatullin off the hook. Playing white, Harika played a fine game and was close to winning when a momentary lapse in concentration helped Khismatullin to liquidate to an equal endgame. Abhijeet Gupta scored a fine attacking victory with black pieces against Paul Hoffman of Germany while GM norm holder Vaibhav Suri went down to lower ranked Alexandros Gogolis of Greece.

Source: Published>