Master Viorel Bologan came close to winning a medal at the European Chess Championship that ended on Sunday, April 1, in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv. In the last round, Bologan drew with Russia’s Vladimir Malakhov and was ranked 7th with 8 points, Info-Prim Neo reports. Bologan received an award of €4850 for his position. Twelve other competitors obtained the same number of points, so that additional coefficients were applied and it was Malakhov and French Laurent Fressinet who made it in the top three. Russia’s Dmitri Ivanenko became world champion with 8.5 points. Moldova had two more representatives at the competition, but none of them impressed. Viorel Iordachescu occupied the 174th place with 5.5 points, while Iulian Baltag obtained the same number of points, but was ranked 190th. 340 players competed in the tournament.