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Former World junior champion Abhijeet Gupta starts as the top seed and hot favourite in Delhi International Chess Festival that got under way on Saturday. A record breaking 700+ participants registered for the biggest ever prize money tournament of the country. The premier section has just over 100 participants and is one of the strongest tournaments, with over 50 titled players participating, including some of the best players from India.
The premier section also includes GM Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, Andrey Deviatkin of Russia, Czebe Attila of Hungary, Raset Ziatdinov of United States, Henrik Teske of Germany, Marat Dzhumaev and Dmitry Kayumov of Uzbekistan, which makes the tournament extremely competitive. On the national front we find (behind Abhijeet Gupta) Abhijeet Kunte, B. Adhiban, P. Magesh Chandran and Commonwealth champion M.R. Lalith Babu. The local challenge will be spearheaded by GMs Sahaj Grover and Vaibhav Suri apart from Tania Sachdev, who had a very successful stint recently in a tournament where she played against great masters of the past.
The tournament, which was first held twelve years ago, is split into three different sections. The 'A' section has a prize purse is Rs. 1.25 million (= US $22,000 or €16,800). The ‘B’ section, for players rated below 2200 rating, has a prize pool of Rs. 300,000 (€4,200 or US $5,500), while the section ‘C’, reserved for players rated below 1900 Elo rating, has a prize fund of Rs. 600,000 and will start on the 9th of January.
P. Magesh Chandran continued with his winning ways and outplayed IM Kirill Kuderinov of Kazakhstan to emerge as sole leader on 4.5 points. After accounting for second seed Aleksej Alexandrov of Belarus in the previous round it was another excellent result for Chandran, who played some high quality chess to remain at the top at the half way stage of this Rs 1.1 million (= €15,000, US $20,000) prize tournament.
GM M.R. Lalith Babu (above right) salvaged some anxious moments in the endgame against Lu Shanglei of China (left) before he could split the point. Shanglei, Babu, Vaibhav Suri, Ankit Rajpara and Anup Deshmukh share the second spot jointly on four points each.
In the biggest upset of the day IM Anup Deshmukh (above right) defeated GM Sahaj Grover (left). In full swing here, Deshmukh, formerly a member of the Indian team, played a fine attacking game to outwit Grover from a French Defense. In another upset result, Ankit Rajpara came good against GM-in-waiting M. Shyam Sundar. It was a long drawn endgame with an extra pawn for Rajpara who did not falter and converted it in to a full point after fighting for over 80 moves.
Abhijeet Gupta (above right) was yet again held to a draw in the tournament. IM Ashwin Jayaram (left) played the white side of a French Defence and gave no chances whatsoever to the highest rated player in the tournament. With just three decisive games out of the top ten boards the tournament is turning out to be tough for the fancied players too. Alexandrov could not quite recover from the loss yesterday and was again held to a draw by Saptarshi Roy.
Amongst the youngsters, Murali Karthikeyan and S L Narayanan stayed in the hunt for their respective norms after drawing with GMs B. Adhiban and Abhijeet Kunte respectively. The other talent, Arvindh Chthambaram, will however need to win some games now, after he lost to V. Vishnu Prasanna in the fifth round.
Meanwhile, Sushant Bannerjee (above) deservingly won the Category ‘B’ tournament of the festival that ended today. Bannerjee logged eight points out of a possible nine to pocket the Rs. 100,000 winner’s purse out of a total prize pool of Rs. 350,000 (€4,900, US $6400).
Best women player in the Category ‘B’ tournament
Young Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri (above) joined P. Magesh Chnadran in lead on five points after the end of the sixth round of Parsvnath International Chess Festival. At the top of the tables, Magesh Chandran survived a real scare before he could salvage a draw against Commonwealth champion M.R. Lalith Babu, while Suri had it easy against IM Anup Deshmukh to match overnight leader Chandran on points.
On what turned out to be a tough day for him, top seeded Abhijeet Gupta suffered a major reversal, going down to veteran GM Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh (above). It was an excellent position for fancied Gupta in the opening, but Murshed kept himself in the hunt and eventually turned the tables with some fighting chess.
Indian IM Tania Sachdev, rated 2403, with 30./6 points
WGM Soumya Swaminathan from India, rated 2315, also at 3.0/6
With Suri and Chandran in front, as many as nine players are in close pursuit on 4.5 points apiece. They are Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, Lu Shanglei of China, Czebe Attila of Hungary, Dzhumaev Marat of Uzbekistan, Murshed and Indians, Lalith Babu, Ankit Rajpara, Swapnil Dhopade and Murali Karthikeyan. A pack of 11 players including former national champion B Adhiban is in the hunt too on four points apiece and the battle for the top is only going to get interesting as the event progresses further.
Rk. |
Ti. |
Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. |
TB1 |
TB2 |
TB3 |
1 |
GM |
Magesh Chandran | IND | 2580 | 5.0 |
23.0 |
15.5 |
19.00 |
2 |
GM |
Vaibhav Suri | IND | 2503 | 5.0 |
20.5 |
14.0 |
17.00 |
3 |
GM |
Aleksandrov Aleksej | BLR | 2607 | 4.5 |
22.5 |
15.0 |
15.75 |
GM |
Lalith Babu M.R. | IND | 2541 | 4.5 |
22.5 |
15.0 |
15.75 |
|
5 |
GM |
Lu Shanglei | CHN | 2526 | 4.5 |
22.0 |
15.0 |
15.75 |
6 |
GM |
Murshed Niaz | BAN | 2473 | 4.5 |
21.5 |
14.5 |
15.50 |
7 |
Karthikeyan Murali | IND | 2341 | 4.5 |
21.0 |
15.0 |
14.75 |
|
8 |
IM |
Ankit R. Rajpara | IND | 2407 | 4.5 |
20.5 |
14.0 |
13.75 |
9 |
GM |
Czebe Attila | HUN | 2494 | 4.5 |
19.0 |
13.0 |
14.25 |
10 |
GM |
Dzhumaev Marat | UZB | 2554 | 4.5 |
17.5 |
12.5 |
13.25 |
11 |
IM |
Swapnil S. Dhopade | IND | 2474 | 4.5 |
16.0 |
10.5 |
11.75 |
12 |
IM |
Deshmukh Anup | IND | 2246 | 4.0 |
22.0 |
15.5 |
13.00 |
13 |
GM |
Laxman R.R. | IND | 2443 | 4.0 |
21.5 |
14.5 |
14.25 |
14 |
GM |
Ziatdinov Raset | USA | 2354 | 4.0 |
21.0 |
14.5 |
12.75 |
15 |
GM |
Adhiban B. | IND | 2558 | 4.0 |
20.5 |
14.0 |
12.25 |
16 |
IM |
Kuderinov Kirill | KAZ | 2433 | 4.0 |
20.0 |
14.0 |
10.75 |
17 |
Kulkarni Rakesh | IND | 2306 | 4.0 |
20.0 |
13.0 |
11.50 |
|
18 |
GM |
Teske Henrik | GER | 2512 | 4.0 |
19.5 |
13.0 |
12.75 |
19 |
GM |
Grover Sahaj | IND | 2472 | 4.0 |
19.5 |
13.0 |
12.00 |
20 |
IM |
Vishnu Prasanna. V | IND | 2488 | 4.0 |
19.0 |
13.0 |
11.00 |
21 |
FM |
Gagare Shardul | IND | 2403 | 4.0 |
18.5 |
12.5 |
11.75 |
22 |
IM |
Vakhidov Jahongir | UZB | 2415 | 4.0 |
17.0 |
10.5 |
10.50 |
Amongst the Indian youngsters Murali Karthikeyan (above) kept himself in contention for a norm after defeating Wang Yunguo of China. After six rounds, the 13-year-old has a staggering performance rating of 2610 points. If the trend continues, the under-12 world champion of 2011 is on course for a GM norm here.
The ‘C’ category of the first Indian chess festival got underway here on a chilly but not-so-cold Wednesday morning. The temperatures moved towards normalcy which was a big respite for the players. In all 555 players are taking part in the category ‘C’ event which is reserved for players below 1900 Elo rating. The festival has catered to 890 players in all categories.
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