Suat Atalik leads Negroponte Open

Suat Atalik moves ahead at Negroponte Open
9th to 17th August, in the city of Chalkis, Greece

The 1st international chess tournament “Negroponte 2010” is being played from 9th to 17th August, 2010, at the beautiful city of Chalkis, Greece.

The tournament is managed by the Chess Academy Chalkis “Palamedes Evia”, and played as 9-round Swiss Open with total prize fund of 25.000 EUR. The first prize is 3.500 EUR, and there will be special awards for women, juniors, rating performance, etc. 204 people from 29 countries compete.

After taking a short break in round six to draw GM Zaven Andriasian, GM Suat Atalik from Turkey continued the winning row by dispatching the 2009 Asia Chess Champion GM Ganguly.

Atalik is now sole leader in the tournament, with 6.5 points from seven rounds. Joint second are GM Andriasian, GM Vladimir Burmakin and GM Robert Hess, who inflicted a first defeat to the Indian wonder FM Vishnu Prasanna. Prasanna is still in position to fight for the GM norm though.

Another wonder is coming from Armenia. The untitled Vahe Baghdasaryan (elo 2229), who already earned a GM norm at Kavala Open, is trashing another batch of Grandmasters and currently performs at the level of 2624 elo.

Round 7 standings:

1. GM Atalik Suat TUR 2607 – 6.5

2-4. GM Andriasian Zaven ARM 2588, GM Hess Robert L USA 2588 and GM Burmakin Vladimir RUS 2605 – 6.0

5-11. GM Papaioannou Ioannis GRE 2621, GM Ghaem Maghami Ehsan IRI 2585, GM Graf Alexander GER 2590, GM Rychagov Andrey RUS 2538, GM Khismatullin Denis RUS 2667, IM Melia Salome GEO 2442 and Baghdasaryan Vahe ARM 2229 – 5.5

12-34. FM Vishnu Prasanna V IND 2341, GM Gupta Abhijeet IND 2587, GM Parligras Mircea ROU 2574, GM Bosiocic Marin CRO 2543, GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar IND 2655, GM Nikolov Momchil BUL 2552, GM Nikolaidis Ioannis GRE 2493, GM Vorobiov Evgeny E RUS 2592, GM Sandipan Chanda IND 2637, IM Harika Dronavalli IND 2504, WGM Charkhalashvili Inga GEO 2346, GM Rozentalis Eduardas LTU 2631, GM Moradiabadi Elshan IRI 2571, GM Romanishin Oleg M UKR 2544, GM Friedel Joshua E USA 2527, GM Zablotsky Sergei RUS 2553, IM Pap Misa SRB 2509, IM Danielian Elina ARM 2431, FM Enchev Ivajlo BUL 2441, GM Halkias Stelios GRE 2588, IM Grover Sahaj IND 2411, GM Tukhaev Adam UKR 2518 and Georgakopoulos Nikolaos GRE 2258 and Vaibhav Suri IND 2419 – 5.0 etc.

Full article here.