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Chess World

Las Vegas, USA
Aug 28, (UNI)

Grandmaster Alexander Khalifman of Russia today went one step closer to being crowned as the 14th world chess champion when he drew his fifth game against grandmaster vladimir akopian of armenia. With only one more game to be played at the hotel ceasars place, the russian leads akopian 3-2. Akopian has to perform a herculean task of beating the chainsmoking russian who regularly venture outside the playing hall for obvious reasons. Akopian will have a severe handicap of black pieces to force a win for a tie-break.In the entire competition, khalifman has not lost a single game when he was handling white pieces. It was a case of so near and yet so far in the fifth game today as far as akopian was concerned. The armenian worked out a near winning position against khalifman in spanish opening thanks to the latter's time trouble. The armenian even managed to win a pawn on 37th move but khalifman took the game into rook ending to escape with a draw in 49 moves. Gm khalifman later shown respect for his opponent's play. ''kopian is a very strong player and i cannot take things granted '' he said. Both players were visibly tired after playing under strain for about a month. Uni