CHENNAI: The 12th Chennai Open chess tournament for the Sakthi Group Dr N Mahalingam Trophy is witnessing a fair amount of Indian presence at and near the top. After Round 7, NR Visakh and V Vishnu Prasanna were in a pack of seven players sharing the lead with six points each. Six Indians were in a group of 13 players half-a-point behind.
The top boards saw draws on Wednesday, which helped the players in the chasing pack close the gap with the leaders. Chennai youngster GB Harshavardhan bounced back from a sixth-round setback with a creditable draw against Chilean Grandmaster Rodrigo Vasquez Schroeder. With 5.5 points, he is on course for a third and final International Master norm.
Chennai-based GM Vishnu Prasanna was half-a-point behind the leaders at the start of the seventh round and moved to the top with a win over M Kunal with black pieces. Another GM from Chennai, Visakh drew with Russian GM Sergei Yudin. He was among the leaders at the start of the day and stayed in that group.
With three rounds to go, top seed Pavel Ponkratov of Russia and Peruvian second seed Jose Martinez Alcantara were also in the leading pack, following a draw in their game on the top board where the former played with white. Yudin, fellow Russian Aleksey Goganov and Ukraine’s Stanislav Bogdanovich were the others in the group on six points.
The next few rounds in the event offering Rs 15 lakh in total prize money will be exciting. There are a lot of Indians in contention. Other than the two on top, sharing the second spot with Harshavardhan are Neelotpal Das, MR Venkatesh, PDS Girinath, Mitrabha Guha and Jubin Jimmy.
Select results (Round 7)
Pavel Ponkratov (Rus, 6) drew with Jose Martinez Alcantara (Per, 6); NR Visakh (Ind, 6) drew with Sergei Yudin (Rus, 6); Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr, 5.5) drew with Taher Yoseph Theolifus (Ina, 5.5); Aleksey Goganov (Rus, 6) bt Anup Deshmukh (Ind, 5); Aditya Samant (Ind, 5) lost to Stanislav Bogdanovich (Ukr, 6); GB Harshavardhan (Ind, 5.5) drew with Rodrigo Vasquez Schroeder (Chi, 5.5); M Kunal (Ind, 5) lost to V Vishnu Prasanna (Ind, 6); V Pranav (Ind, 5) lost to Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo, 5.5); Ivan Rozum (Rus, 5.5) bt Mikulas Manik (Svk, 4.5); David Alberto (Ita, 4.5) lost to Denis Eraschenkov (Rus, 5.5).