The "DreamHack India" is the largest gaming festival in India. The fair was held last weekend, from 4 to 6 November, in Hyderabad, at the Hitex Exhibition Center. This year, chess was part of the event.
ChessBase India organised rapid and blitz tournaments, with a prize fund of "10 lakh", which is one million rupees (12,200 euros). About 400 players registered for these tournaments, including a number of grandmasters. Top seed in the rapid tournament was was GM Harsha Bharathakoti.
GM Harsha Bharathakoti, who currently has a standard rating of 2582 and a rapid rating of 2574
Many young and sometimes very young players, under 10 years of age, took the opportunity to gain experience in such a tournament. Among the participants was 15-year-old Savitha Shri B, currently number four on the FIDE World Ranking List for girls.
The tournament was played on two days, with a time-limit of 15+2.
After nine rounds GM Lalit Babu was the winner.
GM Lalit Babu
He conceded only one draw and finished sole first with 8.5/9. Harsha Bharathakoti came second with 8.0/9, ahead of 15-year-old Prraneeth Vuppala, who scored the same number of points. Savitha Shri finished 34th with 6.5 points.
Lalit Babu was also the favourite in the 10-round blitz tournament, but here Puranik Abhimanyu came sole first with 9.0/10.
A special tournament was the "Comedians over the Board" (COTB) event, a round robin with eight popular entertainers. Samay Raina won with 6.0/7. He is an avid chess lover and hosted chess streaming sessions with other comedians during the pandemic.
Final standings COTB
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 |
| 1 | Samay Raina | 0 | 6 | 17,50 |
| 2 | Anirban Dasgupta | 0 | 5 | 15,00 |
| 3 | Biswa Kalyan Rath | 0 | 4,5 | 15,25 |
| 4 | Joel Dsouza | 0 | 4,5 | 10,25 |
| 5 | Vaibhav Sethia | 0 | 3 | 5,00 |
| 6 | Tanmay Bhat | 0 | 2 | 6,00 |
| 7 | Manik Mahna | 0 | 2 | 3,00 |
| 8 | Sumit Sourav | 0 | 1 | 4,50 |
But the top chess show event on Saturday was the "Death Match 2.0" between the two young Indian grandmasters Gukesh D and Arjun Erigaisi.
The two grandmasters engaged in a long duel in various chess disciplines, Blindfold Chess, Rapid Chess, No Castling Chess, Bullet, Blitz, and Chess 960.
A large crowd followed the match live in the theatre hall and almost 200,000 spectators followed the duel on the internet.
After more than four hours, Arjun Erigaisi was the winner.
Sagar Shah, Gukesh D and Arjun Erigaisi | Photo: ChessBase India
Live Video
Afterwards, the two GMs gave a tandem simul.
Final standings rapid
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 |
|
GM | Lalit Babu M R | 2550 | 8,5 | 54,5 |
| 2 |
|
GM | Harsha Bharathakoti | 2574 | 8 | 51,5 |
| 3 |
|
IM | Prraneeth Vuppala | 2351 | 8 | 51 |
| 4 |
|
GM | Mitrabha Guha | 2374 | 7,5 | 56,5 |
| 5 |
|
GM | Puranik Abhimanyu | 2549 | 7,5 | 53,5 |
| 6 |
|
CM | Md Imran | 2147 | 7,5 | 51,5 |
| 7 |
|
Aswath S | 2044 | 7,5 | 51,5 | |
| 8 |
|
IM | Muthaiah Al | 2354 | 7,5 | 50,5 |
| 9 |
|
IM | Krishna C R G | 2341 | 7,5 | 44,5 |
| 10 |
|
GM | Sankalp Gupta | 2402 | 7 | 52 |
| 11 |
|
IM | Krishnater Kushager | 2310 | 7 | 51,5 |
| 12 |
|
Aditya Varun Gampa | 2179 | 7 | 51 | |
| 13 |
|
IM | Ravi Teja S. | 2358 | 7 | 49 |
| 14 |
|
GM | Narayanan Srinath | 2518 | 7 | 48,5 |
| 15 |
|
Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri | 2158 | 7 | 48,5 | |
| 16 |
|
IM | Ajay Krishna S | 2273 | 7 | 48,5 |
| 17 |
|
GM | Raja Rithvik R | 2370 | 7 | 48 |
| 18 |
|
IM | Dushyant Sharma | 2270 | 7 | 45 |
| 19 |
|
Rohit S | 2081 | 7 | 44,5 | |
| 20 |
|
Chidvilash Sai Surapaneni | 2077 | 7 | 44 |
397 players
Final standings blitz
| Rk. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | ||
| 1 |
|
GM | Puranik Abhimanyu | 2520 | 9 | 0 |
| 2 |
|
GM | Sankalp Gupta | 2412 | 8,5 | 0 |
| 3 |
|
IM | Krishnater Kushager | 2310 | 8,5 | 0 |
| 4 |
|
GM | Harsha Bharathakoti | 2523 | 8,5 | 0 |
| 5 |
|
GM | Raja Rithvik R | 2344 | 8 | 0 |
| 6 |
|
FM | Ram Aravind L N | 2120 | 8 | 0 |
| 7 |
|
GM | Mitrabha Guha | 2526 | 8 | 0 |
| 8 |
|
IM | Dushyant Sharma | 2270 | 8 | 0 |
| 9 |
|
CM | Md Imran | 2179 | 8 | 0 |
| 10 |
|
Chidvilash Sai Surapaneni | 2077 | 8 | 0 | |
| 11 |
|
IM | Muthaiah Al | 2354 | 8 | 0 |
| 12 |
|
GM | Narayanan Srinath | 2459 | 8 | 0 |
| 13 |
|
GM | Lalit Babu M R | 2551 | 8 | 0 |
| 14 |
|
WIM | Savitha Shri B | 2311 | 8 | 0 |
| 15 |
|
IM | Ravi Teja S. | 2434 | 8 | 0 |
| 16 |
|
IM | Krishna C R G | 2380 | 8 | 0 |
| 17 |
|
IM | Prraneeth Vuppala | 2351 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 18 |
|
Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri | 2163 | 7,5 | 0 | |
| 19 |
|
CM | Amitpal Singh | 2107 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 20 |
|
Varun V | 2159 | 7,5 | 0 |
400 players
