Press Trust of India
Reykjavik, March 17: Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta ended his a month-and-a-half long European stint with a brilliant victory at the Reykjavik International open chess tournament here Thursday.
Leading the strong open field by a full point before the final round, Abhijeet just needed a draw that he achieved with ease against Italian GM Francesco Rambaldi in the 10th game.
International Master (IM) Tania Sachdev also joined the party making her second Grandmaster norm with consistent play throughout the tournament. Having made the norm with one round still remaining, Tania played out a hard-fought draw with Ukranian Grandmaster Alexander Beliavsky.
Gupta ended on 8.5 points out of a possible 10, winning seven and drawing three games. In overall standings, Tania finished an impressive 14th on seven points after starting as the 49th seed and emerged as the best woman player of the meet.
Elite club member Dmitry Andreikin of Russia finished second on eight points and then there was a tie for 3rd-11th place in which Grandmasters Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria had the best tie-break score.
It turned out to be a memorable event for Abhijeet who tied for second place but finished fourth in the preceding tournament at Cannes in France. Here, the former national champion was at the top of his game and his biggest scalps were Sergei Movsesian of Armenia and Nils Grandelius of Sweden.
Speaking about his performance, Abhijeet said, “I think when I won against Movsesian I felt really good as I guess in the past he has been in top 10 in world rankings.”