Chakkravarthy holds Ganguly for a draw in Negroponte Open

Chalkida (Greece): Grandmaster J Deepan Chakkravarthy held his more famous compatriot GM Surya Shekhar

Ganguly to a hard fought draw in the third round of the first Negroponte International open chess tournament here. Playing the white side of an English opening, Chakkravarthy faced the King`s Indian set up by Ganguly and the latter was on top in the middle game with some precise manoeuvres. However, Chakkravarthy came up with some sterling defense in the final stages of the game and liquidated to a Queen and rook endgame that was drawn without much ado. After the end of the third round of this Euros 25000 prize money tournament, as many as 12 players share the lead with a perfect score of three points out of a possible three. Ganguly, former world junior champion ABhijeet Gupta, double GM norm holder D Harika, GM Sandipan Chanda and Vishnu Prasanna are amongst those who share the 13th spot currently having 2.5 points each. Vishnu Prasanna caused a minor flutter in the tournament holding Grandmaster Ghaem Maghami Ehsan of Iran. Prasanna, who is hoping to complete the International Master title for which he is only rating short now, played a solid game throughout to keep Maghami`s forces at bay and got the half point. From the Indian perspective Abhijeet Gupta played a fine attacking game to outwit Ioannis Stavrianakis of Greece who generally has the reputation of a solid player. Playing white, Abhijeet embarked on a popular variation in the Queen`s Indian defense and a timely king side pawn roll completely outplaced black pieces. Stavrianakis was at sea in finding the defense and he failed to produce the right defense. Abhijeet won in less than 90 minutes. Sandipan Chanda put his second round draw aside and scored a comfortable victory over Nikolaidis Konstantinos of Greece and so did D Harika against German Norman Schuetze. The shocker of the day for the Indians came on Tania Sachdev`s board when the former Asian women`s champion looked rather out-of-sort and went down to Greek Dimitros Kosmas-Lekkas who played black. The young guns Sahaj Grover and Vaibhav Suri scored victories over Greeks Dimitros Vazelakis and Theodoros Sideris respectively while Karma Pandya turned the tables on another local hopeful Serafim Tsounis. Grover, Suri and Pandya reached 2 points from their three games like Soumya Swaminathan and Vishnu Prasanna. Six rounds still remain in the tournament that has over 70 titled players in a field of 202 participants. PTI