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Ganguly back to winning ways, defeats Tukhaev

Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly outplayed Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine to take his tally to six points after the eighth round of the inaugural Negroponte International open chess tournament here.

Chalkida: Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly outplayed Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine to take his tally to
six points after the eighth round of the inaugural Negroponte International open chess tournament here. The victory against Tukhaev, who had jointly won the preceding International tournament at Kavala with Abhijeet Gupta, was a good comeback for Ganguly after his shocking defeat at the hands of Suat Atalik of Turkey. With just one round to come in the event, Sandipan Chanda is the other Indian having six points and only these two have a chance to be amongst the top five finishers. In the penultimate round, Sandipan defeated compatriot D Harika. Meanwhile at the top of the tables, Suat Atalik played out a draw with Vladimir Burmakin of Russia. Robert Hess of United States defeated Zaven Andriasian of Armenia to share the lead with Atalik with seven points and Burmakin is behind two leaders with 6.5 points to his credit. Ganguly and Chanda are in the next pack of 17 players having six points each. Grandmaster and 2008 world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta is the lone Indian amongst 5.5 pointers and behind him are GM Deepan Chakkravarthy, Harika, Sahaj Grover, Vishnu Prasanna, M Shyam Sundar and Vaibhav Suri who all have five points each. Tania Sachdev, Soumya Swaminathan and Karma Pandya are all on 4.5 points hoping for an improved performance in the final round. The penultimate round was in fact a mixed day for the Indians. Ganguly played a superb game to beat Tukhaev from the white side of a Nimzo Indian defense while Chanda had some anxious moments before he could count in the full point against Harika. Abhijeet Gupta was held to a draw by Joshua Friedel of United States in a game of fluctuating fortunes while young guns Sahaj Grover and Vaibhav Suri lost to Stelios Halkias of Greece and Sergei Zablotsky ofRussia respectively. Vishnu Prasanna also lost to David Alberto of Luxembourg. Amongst others Indians, M Shyam Sundar was held to a draw by lower ranked Antoine Berube of Canada while Deepan Chakkravarthy and Tania Sachdev recorded victories. PTI