GM Aravindh Chithambaram, buoyed by a shocking flip of fortunes within the final two rounds walked away with the Chennai Grand Masters title right here on Monday. On an motion packed day on the Anna Centenary Library, the Masters class witnessed a three-way tie between Aravindh, Levon Aronian and Arjun Erigaisi. It led to a play-off, the place Aravindh defeated Aronian. He gained the primary blitz and drew the second with black items to be topped champion of the second version.
Within the Challengers class, GM V Pranav who remained unbeaten by means of the match, clinched the title.
On Monday morning, Aravindh had introduced himself into the title competition after posting a second successive win as in a single day leaders Erigaisi and Aronian ended up drawing their closing spherical of matches. Taking part in with black items Aravindh managed to dominate his closing match in opposition to Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo. Aravindh took management of the sport after Parham traded queens within the twenty fourth transfer and from there on he simply constructed on the benefit in a knight-pawn ending to complete in joint high spot.
“I by no means thought I’d be enjoying the tie-breaker as a result of successful with black wasn’t going to be simple with Parham,” Aravindh stated. “I didn’t suppose a lot about it. I additionally didn’t put an excessive amount of of stress on myself (due to that). Both Aronian or Erigaisi deserved to win it. They in all probability had extra decisive video games than me,” he added.
GM Aravindh Chithambaram (left), buoyed by a shocking flip of fortunes within the final two rounds walked away with the Chennai Grand Masters title on Monday. (Specific Picture)
Aronian settled for a fast draw in opposition to Amin Tabatabaei whereas Arjun couldn’t get previous Maxie Vachier-Lagrave in 38 strikes.
Since Aravindh topped the desk with a superior tie-break rating, Aronian and Erigaisi needed to face-off in a two sport blitz play-off. With each managing a win every with black items, it went right into a sudden-death.
Aronian then bid 6.40 minutes to play black and held Arjun to a draw to arrange the ultimate in opposition to Aravindh.
Within the title conflict, it was even-stevens within the first spherical earlier than Aravindh pounced on a later error from Aronian to win. Then enjoying with black, he held on for a draw.
“Don’t know what occurred nevertheless it was a preventing sport. The state of affairs demanded me to play for the win however I used to be initially stable. Taking part in with these guys itself is an achievement for me… after a number of the strikes, I do go to the washroom to inform myself that truly occurred,” Aravindh stated.
Since three gamers have been tied on 4.5 factors after 7 classical rounds, all three will take residence a money prize of Rs 11 lakh every.
The outcomes (seventh spherical, Indians until talked about): Masters: Levon Aronian (US, 4.5) drew with Amin Tabatabaei (Iran, 4); Alexey Sarana (Ser, 2.5) drew with Vidit Gujrathi (2.5); Arjun Erigaisi (4.5) drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3); Parham Maghsoodloo (Irn, 2.5) misplaced to Aravindh Chithambaram (4.5).
Challengers: V. Pranav (5.5) drew with Leon Luke Mendonca (5); D. Harika (2) drew with M. Pranesh (3.5); Abhimanyu Puranik (3.5) drew with Raunak Sadhwani (4); Karthikeyan Murali (3.5) bt R. Vaishali (1).