Abhijeet Gupta triumphs in Delhi Open chess tournament

Abhijeet Gupta, the champion, receiving the trophy.

Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta executed a quick draw in the tenth round against Aronyak Ghosh and clinched the title with 8.5 points in the 21st Delhi GM Open chess tournament at the Tivoli Gardens, Chhattarpur, on Saturday.

It was a 12-move draw following a repetition of the position thrice that ensured the fourth title in the tournament for the 35-year-old Abhijeet.

The title fetched a cash prize of Rs.7,00,000 for Abhijeet who won seven matches and drew the other three.

There were five players tied on eight points, but as per the tie-break score, Mihail Nikitenko, Diptayan Ghosh, Aronyak Ghosh, Aditya Samant and Duc Hoa Nguyen were placed second to sixth in that order.

The second placing was worth Rs.6,00,000 while the reduction of prize money by Rs.1,00,000 every spot meant Rs.2,00,000 for the sixth place.

There were as many as 16 players tied on 7.5 points, but the tie-break rule categorised them in order, fetching Rs.1,00,000 for the seventh to tenth place.

Top seed SL Narayanan finished seventh and pocketed Rs.1,00,000.

There was cash prize up to the 55th spot in the tournament that carried an overall prize purse of Rs.1.21 crore, spread over three sections.

In the category of the lowest rated players, Dinesh Kumar won the first prize of Rs.4,00,000. He was followed by Naitik Sethi and M Sibi who won Rs.3,00,000 and Rs.2,00,000 respectively.

The results (tenth round): Abhijeet Gupta 8.5 drew with Aronyak Ghosh 8; S.L. Narayanan 7.5 drew with Aditya Samant 8; Diptayan Ghosh 8 bt Adarsh Sriram 7; Semetei Tegin 7.5 drew with Karthik Venkataraman 7.5; Manuel Petrosyan 7.5 drew with Mamikon Gharibyan 7.5; Luka Paichadze 7.5 drew with Neelash Saha 7.5; Duc Hoa Nguyen 8 bt Vitaly Sivuk 7; S. Nitin lost to Mihail Nikitenko 8; Deepan Chakkravarthy 7 drew with Van Huy Nguyen 7.5; Levan Pantsulaia 6.5 lost to Saravana Krishnan 7.5; David Gochelashvili 6.5 lost to Arsen Davtyan 7.5; P. Karthikeyan 7 drew with Harsh Suresh 7; Mikulas Manik 7 drew with Hari Madhavan 7; Uurtsaikh Agibileg 7.5 bt Viresh Sharnarthi 6.5; Alexander Slizhevsky 6.5 lost to Paras Bhoir 7.5.