Report by Orissadiary correspondent; Bhubaneswar: Ukraine Grand Master Martyn Kravtsiv pipped four other GMs and Indian IM B Adhiban at the post to emerge champion in the 2nd SCS International Open GM Chess Tournament, which concluded at Hotel Swosti Premium here on Sunday. These five tied for the top spot with 8.5 points each from 11 rounds. But the title eventually went to Kravtsiv as his Buchholz tie-break score (76.5) was better than the other four.
Belarus GM Aleksej Aleksandrov finished runner-up with a tie-break score of 76. In the absence of an outright winner, the top six cash prizes were shared by the top six with each pocketing Rs 87,667 each.
In the 11th and final round, contest on the top three boards resulted in draws as the players involved chose to play safe. Delhi school boy Vaibhav Suri, who became an IM earlier on Friday, caused the only upset of the day, defeating International Master MR Lalith Babu. The impressive win also fetched Suri his maiden GM norm. National champion B Adhiban lived upto everybody’s expectation by securing his second GM norm with a draw against top seed and Russain GM Alexey Dreev.
IM Debasish Das emerged as the most successful Orissa player, occupying the 22nd position with 7.5 points. Three other Orissa players _ IM Swayangsu Sagyapragyan (25th), Swayams Mishra (48th) and Anwesh Upadhyaya (49th) _ could book places among the top 50 with seven points apiece. Among others, WGMs Padmini Rout (6.5) and Kiran Manisha Mohanty (6.5) finished 57th and 67th respectively. Altogether, nine players from the state finished among the top 100.
Overall, the tournament, offering a total prize fund of Rs 11 lakhs and involving a total of 85 title holders, including 34 GMs, 26 IMs and 3 WGMs, lived upto its image as the strongest of its kind in Asia, producing three titles (two IM, one WGM) and seven norms (two GM, one WGM, four
IM) in the process.
Top board results (Round 11): Alexey Dreev (Rus,8.5) drew with B Adhiban (Ind,8.5), Anton Kovalyov (Arg,8) drew with Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr,8.5), Martyn Kravtsiv (Ukr,8.5) drew with Dmitry Bocharov (Rus,8), Maxim Turov (Rus,8.5) bt Simonian Hrair (Arm,7.5), Dmitry Kokarev (Rus,8.5) bt Pavel Maletin (Rus,7.5), Hera Imre Jr (Hun,8) bt Nurlan Ibrayev (Kaz,7.5), Pablo Lafuente (Arg,8) bt Anwesh Upadhyaya (Ind,Ori,7), Rustam Khusnutdinov (Kaz,8) bt P Konguvel (Ind,7), Saidali Iuldchev (Uzb,8) bt Praveen Kumar (Ind,7), Gevorg Harutjunyan (Arm,8) bt Sergey Kasparov (Blr,7), Vaibhab Suri (Ind,8) bt MR Lalith Babu (Ind,7), Attila Czebe (Hun,8) bt GV Sai Krishna (Ind,7), Evgeny Vorobiov (Rus,7.5) bt Shreyansh Daklia (Ind,6.5), Thomas Luther (Ger,7.5) bt Ticia Gara (Hun,6.5), Sundararajan Kidambi (Ind,7) drew with Bitan Banerjee (Ind,7), Somak Palit (Ind,7) drew with Roman Ovetchkin (Rus,7), Ramnath Bhuvanesh (Ind,7) drew with Sriram Jha (Ind,7), Deepan Chakkravarthy (Ind,7.5) bt Akshat Khamparia (Ind,6.5), S Satyapragyan (Ind,Ori,7) drew with S Nitin (Ind,7), Abhishek Kelkar (Ind,7) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (Ind,7), VAV Rajesh (Ind,7.5) bt BT Murali Krishnan (Ind,6.5), P Karthikeyan (Ind,7) drew with Sayantan Das (Ind,7), Debasish Das (Ind,Ori,7.5) bt Mohammad Javed (Ban,6.5), K Rathnakaran (Ind,7) drew with DP Singh (Ind,7), Anuar Ismagambetov (6.5) drew with Kirnan Manisha Mohanty (Ind,Ori,6.5).
Important Orissa results: Swayams Mishra (7) drew with Soumya Ranjan Mishra (Ind,Ori,6), Padmini Rout (6.5) drew with Ch Divyasri (Ind,6.5), Dasharathi Sahoo (6) lost to Alexandra Fier (Bra,6.5), Manoj Panigrah (6) drew with Hafizul Mohammad Islam (Ban,6), Biswajit Nayak (6) bt Tirto (Ina,5), Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (6) bt Jaydeep Sharma (Ind,5), Mohammad Ashraf (6) bt Veronika Minina (Rus,5), Sidhant Mohapatra (6) bt Anirudh Singh Negi (Ind,5), Vikramaditya Sahu (6) bt K K Nath (Ind,Ori,5), Vivek Tibarewal (6) bt Dhruv Sahu (Ind,5), Binayak Rath (6) bt Madhusudan Sahu (Ind,Ori,5), Subhanshu Mohan Satpathy (5.5) lost to GB Joshi (Ind,6.5), Sekhar Chandra Sahu (5.5) lost to Swati Mohota (Ind,6.5), Sudhir Kumar Behera (5.5) lost to Serikbay Temirbayev (Kaz,6), Swayangsu Satyakam (5.5) drew with Gobardhan Behera (Ind,Ori,5.5).
Final standings (Top 20): 1. M Kravtsiv (8.5), 2. Aleksej Aleksandrov (8.5), 3. Maxim Turov (8.5), 4. Alexey Dreev (8.5), 5. B Adhiban (8.5), 6. Dmitry Kokarev (8.5), 7. Pablo Lafuente (8), 8. Dmitry Bocharov (8), 9. Anton Kovalyov (8), 10. Vaibhav Suri 8), 11. Hera Imre Jr (8), 12. Attila Czebe (8), 13. Gevorg Harutjunyan (8), 14. Rustam Khusnutdinov (8), 15. Iuldachev Saidali (8), 16. Pavel Maletin (7.5), 17. Simonian Hrair (7.5), 18. Nurlan Ibrayev (7.5), 19. Deepan Chakkravarthy (7.5), 20. Evgeny Vorobiov (7.5).
