Prague: India’s dominance in chess continued unabated with Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram winning the first major title of his career after finishing ahead of established names including compatriot R Praggnanandhaa at the Prague Masters tournament in Prague Friday.
The 25-year-old Aravindh ended the tournament with six points after settling for a draw with Gurel Ediz of Turkey in the ninth and final round.
World No. 8 Praggnanandhaa finished tied second with five points after losing to Dutchman Anish Giri.
Tamil Nadu’s Aravindh ended on six points out of a possible nine after his three victories and six draws in the tournament.
Praggnanandhaa concluded his campaign on five points along with Giri and top seed Wei Yi of China.
Aravindh chose the solid Caro Kann to counter Ediz’s King pawn and the Turkish youngster went for the Advance variation. Aravindh had to part with a pawn early in the opening but the complications remained as white had a fractured king side and the extra pawn on the other flank was not of much use.
The players repeated several times during the first time control and Gurel realized that it was not so easy to force matters.
“I have not slept well in the last two days, I was completely fine till the seventh round and then I got this lead and there was pressure,” Aravindh said.
The champion also praised his mentor and coach Grandmaster R B Ramesh and singled out his game against Anish Giri as his best effort in the tournament.
Praggnanandhaa took his chances as he knew he needed to win in order to catch up with his state-mate. It was a King’s Indian defense that met with an usual response from Giri and Praggnanandhaa could not really get the complexities running.
Giri, to his credit, calculated quite well when the position demanded and won a rook for a minor piece to reach a winning position. The Dutch GM did not make any mistakes thereafter.
In other games of the final round David Navara of Czech Republic drew with American Sam Shankland while another local hero Nguyen Thai Dai Van was close to winning his final game against Vincent Keymer of Germany.
Divya Deshmukh turned things around as she won her final round game against Stamatis Kourkoulous-Arditis of Greece in the Challengers’ section. Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan and Jonas Buhk Bjerre of Denmark tied for the top spot here with seven points apiece.
Results final round: Gurel Ediz (Tur, 4.5) drew with Aravindh Chithambaram (Ind, 6); David Navara (Cze, 4) drew with Sam Shankland (Usa, 4); Anish Giri (Ned, 5) beat R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 5); Quang Liem Le (Vie, 4) drew with Wei Yi (Chn, 5); Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Cze, 2.5) playing Vincent Keymer (Ger, 4).
Challengers: Divya Deshmukh (3) beat Stamatis Kourkoulous-Arditis (Gre, 3); Ma Qun (CHn, 5.5) beat Richard Stalmach (Cze, 3); Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb, 7) drew with Finek Vaclav (Cze, 4); Jonas Buhl Bjerre (Den, 7) beat Nemec Jychym (Cze, 2.5); Marc`andria Maurizzi (Fra, 6) got a walk over against Ivan Salgado Lopez (Esp, 4).
PTI
