Prasad in sight of Grandmaster norm

A quiet nine-move draw against Hungarian Grandmaster Zoltan Varga in the ninth round saw International Master D V Prasad inch closer to a Grandmaster norm at the Dortmund Open chess championships in Germany on Saturday.

With seven points, Prasad thus maintains joint lead along with Varga, Adrian Mikhailchisin and International Master Davit Lobzhanidze.

With the norm in sight, it was a safe first draw from Prasad. In a formal Sicilian game, Prasad accepted the draw from the Hungarian GM after some thought on the ninth move.

Prasad, who holds a GM-norm from the Sakthi GM tournament held in Madras five years ago, will get his second norm if he draws against a player rated above 2500.

It will give the Indian a nine-game GM-norm. Coupled with his 11-game GM-norm from Madras, it will put him closer to the Grandmaster's title, which needs to be done over 24 games.

With two more Grandmasters tournaments coming up on the trot, the Biel Open at Switzerland and the Asian Championships at Calcutta, Prasad looks all set to complete his long pending Grandmaster's title requirement.

Other Indians on the fray, Abhijit Kunte and P Konguvel, also drew their games, making it an all-draw day for Indians.

Konguvel drew with German Matthias Krallmann in a marathon game that lasted 44 moves.

It turned out to be a Ruy Lopez with neither player willing to risk anything. The queens were off the board right after the middlegame and the ensuing rook and equal pawns ending could not produce more than a draw. With the draw Konguvel moved to 5.5 points.

Kunte faced much tougher opposition against Russian IM Andrei Orlov. His skills of manoeuvre did not work for Kunte as the Russian was upto the task.

Their game arose from a Kings Indian attack and the Russian was quite solid and effectively thwarted all advances by Kunte. Not willing to stretch his position, Kunte agreed for a draw on the 22nd move. Kunte is on 6 points, a point adrift of Prasad and the leaders.

Important Results (Round 9)
Zoltan Varga (7.0) drew with D V Prasad (7.0)
Vladimir Epishin (6.5) drew with H Thomas (6.5)
Josef Pinter (6.0) lost to Davit Lobzhanidze (7.0)
J Koscielski (6.0) lost to A Mikhailchisin (7.0)
Dottling Fabian (6.5) drew with M Saltaev (6.0)
Andrei Orlov (6.0) drew with A Kunte (6.0)
P Konguvel (5.5) drew with M Krallmann (5.5). PTI COR ABH