Romain Edouard Moves Into Lead At Hastings Masters

4 January 2011, Kuala Lumpur – At the Hastings Masters 2011, top seed Romain Edouard has moved into the lead on his own after an easy round 7 win. Steve Giddins of TWIC reports.

Easy for Edouard

Top seed Romain Edouard of France took the sole lead in Round 7 of the 2010/11 Hastings Masters, after an unexpectedly easy win against young Indian talent, Rao Prasanna. Edouard commented afterwards that his opponent "had confused ideas from different variations", and the French GM soon netted a couple of pawns for no compensation.

GM Edouard of France is leading the rankings after round 7 with 6.0 points and in second place are GM Istratescu of Romania, GM Gormally and GM Howell, both of England, with 5.5 points each.

To view the game between Edouard and Prasanna, please use game viewer below. The Ruy Lopez opening transpired.

With two rounds to go, Edouard leads outright with 6/7. Istratescu, Howell, Shyam and Gormally have 5.5, with six more players behind them on 5. In today's round 8 top pairings, Edouard meets Istratescu, board two sees an all-English clash between Howell and Gormally, whilst on board three, Anwesh plays fellow Indian, Shyam.

Links

• Official website
  
• Games in pgn at TWIC
  
• fireyrook’s blog
  
• chess-in-Malaysia’s blog