Pranesh lies joint second in Delhi Open chess

Indian teenager M Pranesh scored an upset win over Grand Master Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine to occupy the joint second spot after eighth round of the 18th Delhi Open International Grandmasters on Tuesday. Pranesh went for a dubious sacrifice which should not have worked with correct play but Tukhaev made a mistake and lost his way and a point. Pranesh is now in joint second spot with 6.5 points and is poised to earn a Grand Master norm. He has already made sure of an International Master norm from the tournament.

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Pranesh shares the second spot with six others -- Fedorov, GM Abhijeet Gupta, GM Diptayan Ghosh, Jose Eduardo Martinez of Peru, Kirill Stupak of Belarus and Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan. Belarus' Aleksej Aleksandrov maintained his slender half point lead after settling for a quick draw with compatriot Alexei Fedorov.  Aleksandrov just repeated moves very early and the draw was signed within a few minutes into the game.

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Among other Indians, Abhijeet Gupta scored a fine victory over compatriot Himal Gusain who will now have to work hard to secure his GM norm, while Diptayan Ghosh defeated N Lokesh and will now meet  Abhijeet in the next round.

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Important Results after Round 8

Aleksej Aleksandrov (Belarus) 7 drew with Alexei Fedorov (Belarus) 6.5; Abhijeet Gupta (India) 6.5 beat Himal Gusain (India) 6; Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara  (Peru) 6.5 beat V Vishnu Prasanna (India) 5.5; Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzbekistan) 6.5 beat Florian Kaczur (Hungary) 5.5.

Ivan Rozum (Russia) 6 drew with Neelash Saha (India) 6; N Lokesh (India) 5.5 lost to Diptayan Ghosh (India) 6.5; Adam Tukhaev (Ukraine) 5.5 lost to M Pranesh (India) 6.5; Kirill Stupak (Belarus) 6.5 beat Karthik Venkataraman (India) 5.5; Pavel Ponkratov (Russia) 6 beat Maxim Lugovskoy (Russia) 5.5.

Farrukh Amonatov (Tajikistan) 5.5 drew with Abdelrahman Hesham (Egypt) 5.5; Karthikeyan Murali (India) 6 beat Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan) 5; Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia) 6 beat Muhammad Khusenkhojaev (Tajikistan) 5; P Karthikeyan (India) lost to Mikheilk Mchedlishvili (Georgia) 6; Ameya Audi (India) 6 beat Stanislav Bogdanovich (Ukraine) 5.

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