GM Aleksej of Belarus defeated overnight leader Grandmaster Vaibhav Suri to be in joint lead along with Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan after the end of the eighth round of the premier section ofParsvnath International Chess Festival now underway here.

Round 8 video by Vijay Kumar

Dzhumaev accounted for Commonwealth champion M R Lalith Babu to match Aleksandrov on 6.5 points after the eighth round and these two will clash in the penultimate round now.

Aleksandrov ended the dream run of Suri from the black side of a closed Ruy Lopez. The Delhi boy could not keep pace with his counter-attack when black’s pieces came hurling at the kingside and the result was a smooth attack and a swift victory for Aleksandrov.

Top board battle between GM Vaibhav Suri and GM Aleksej Aleksandrov

Dzhumaev, who recently won the strong Kolkata open, made short work of Lalith Babu in a Caro Kann defense game. Playing white, Marat went for a less-played system and got a dangerous attack right from the early middle game. An erroneous plan by Lalith Babu resulted in lost position pretty quickly and Dzhumaev clinched the issue in a mere 24 moves.

With Aleksandrov and Dzhumaev in front four players – Henrik Teske of Germany, Kiril Kuderinov of Kazakhstan,Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and Suri share the third spot with six points apiece.

Teske defeated Sahaj Grover from the black side of a Queen pawn opening. The German GM was worse in the endgame but ended up swindling his young opponent.

IM Vakhidov Jahongir of Uzbekistan and GM Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh

Kuderinov turned the tables on Lu Shanglei of China after struggling in the middle game while Vakhidov had luck smiling at him when Bangladeshi Grandmaster Niaz Murshed forgot to keep track of his clock and lost on time.

Murali Karthikeyan kept himself in contention for a Grandmaster norm after drawing with Magesh Chandran Panchanathan. The Chennai-based 13-year old took his tally to a very impressive 5.5 points and a draw in the next round should be enough to get him his maiden Grandmaster norm. Kuderinov is another player who is in with a chance to make a Grandmaster norm.

Amongst other Indians in the fray, Diptayan Ghosh did well to hold top seed Abhijeet Gupta to a draw. With five points from eight games, Gupta is out of contention.

GM Raset Ziatdinov and IM Stany GA

Ganguly wins Fujairah International 2012

The Fujairah International Chess Championship 2012 was organized by the Fujairah Chess Club from 13th to 21st November at the Exhibition Centre, Korthabah Road, Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.

The 9-round Master Tournament was open for the players rated 2200 or above. The lower rated players competed in the Open Tournament.

Indian Grandmasters Ganguly Surya Shekhar and Sandipan Chanda signed a quick draw in the last round and waited for the other games to finish.

GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly

Sergey Fedorchuk, who was the co-leader before the last round, was defeated by Le Quang Liem, but Alexander Moiseenko outplayed the legendary GM Jaan Ehlvest to catch the Indians on the shared first place.

Ganguly Surya Shekhar is declared winner on best tie-break score.

The young Chinese Ma Qun achieved a fantastic 2732-performance but he already met the requirements for the Grandmaster title, pending approval of the FIDE PB in January in Yerevan.

The Master Tournament offered $ 50,500 in prizes.

GM Sandipan Chanda

Final top 10 standings:

1. GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar IND 2619 – 6.5
2. GM Moiseenko Alexander UKR 2702 – 6.5
3. GM Sandipan Chanda IND 2596 – 6.5
4. GM Fedorchuk Sergey A. UKR 2652 – 6
5. GM Jobava Baadur GEO 2710 – 6
6. GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2705 – 6
7. GM Sumets Andrey UKR 2622 – 6
8. Ma Qun CHN 2534 – 6
9. GM Saric Ivan CRO 2622 – 6
10. GM Bacrot Etienne FRA 2702 – 5.5

US Chess Scoop video on the 2012 Philadelphia International

9th Annual Philadelphia International

The 9th Annual Philadelphia International was held June 29-July 3 at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel, 17th & Race Streets, Philadelphia, PA.

The tournament was won by GM Abhijeet Gupta, reigning Indian champion, who finished with an undefeated 7½/9. Gupta took home $2,000 for his efforts.

IM Marani Venkatesh finished in 2nd place on 7/9 and also scored a GM norm to go with his $1,200.

WGM Padmini Rout finished with 5½/9 but played against strong enough opposition for that to be good enough for an IM norm.

GM Abhijeet Gupta

Final standings:

1. GM Abhijeet Gupta 2644 IND – 7.5 ($2000.00)
2. IM Marani Venkatesh 2517 IND – 7.0 ($1200.00)
3-4. GM Evgeny Romanov 2631 RUS and GM S P Sethuraman 2546 IND – 6.5 ($750.00 each)
5-8. GM Alojzije Jankovic 2564 CRO, GM Marin Bosiocic 2555 CRO, GM Alexander Evdokimov 2544 RUS and IM Dean Ippolito 2432 – 6.0 ($450.00 each)
9-20. GM Alonso Zapata 2484 COL, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy 2461 IND, IM Daniel J Ludwig 2456, IM Bryan G Smith 2444, IM Raja Panjwani 2416 CAN, IM Justin Sarkar 2411, GM Lawrence Kaufman 2380, WGM Eesha Karavade 2353 IND, WGM Padmini Rout 2345 IND, FM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy 2322, FM Alec Getz 2321, Robert Perez 2314 – 5.5

Official website

Woman Grandmaster Padmini Rout

India – Israel chess match final video

Abhijeet Shines at London

London: Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta won the London Chess Classic’s open section with a hard-earned triumph over GM Keith Arkell of England while International Master Sahaj Grover pulled himself to the second spot after the final round of the event that concluded here.

Abhijeet, a former world junior champion and reigning national champion, scored eight points in all and will be past the coveted 2650 ELO rating mark in the next rating list while Sahaj, continued his progress in a big way to be well clear of the 2500 elo mark which is necessary to become a Grandmaster. Sahaj defeated English GM Peter Wells in the final round.

The Indian dominance in the open section continued as Abhijeet won his seventh game in the event apart from two draws that he conceded earlier.

While a draw was sufficient for the BPCL employee to get to joint first, he did one better to claim the championship uncontested with his reflex-action play in the final round against Arkell.

Sahaj yet again missed the final GM norm as he had not played enough GMs. But the 16-year old won many a hearts with his swashbuckling play and looks set to be amongst the new crop of Indian stalwarts that include Parimarjan Negi. Sahaj scored 7.5 points in all, a half point less than Abhijeet.

“I came here last year and had mediocre results, but off late I have been playing better and this win here will probably help me a lot for tough future events like Gibraltar and Aeroflot open,” said Abhijeet after a nerve-wracking final game against Arkell.

Sahaj made it an all Indian affair after a lucky victory over Wells. “I had much better position out of the opening and he used too much time to complicate matters, it was a pretty crazy game but somehow, I was able to pull through,” said the former under-10 world champion and the reigning World junior bronze medallist.

Apart from the top two finishers, IM Arghyadip Das also had a good day as he beat in-form Jovanka Houska of England to finish joint third.

It was Indian dominance in the junior section as all the prizes were shared by them. Mohammad Ashraf, PV Nandhidhaa and under-12 world champion Murali Karthikeyan shared the honours in the junior category.

Siddharth Gopakumar and N Surendran also did well for themselves in the unrated and rating categories by bagging a prize while Shweya Gole also achieved a podium finish in her category.

Round 9 (final) standings Top  20 Rank Name Score Fed. M/F Rating TPR W-We 1 GM Gupta, Abhijeet 8.0 IND M 2640 2785 +1.24 2 IM Grover, Sahaj 7.5 IND M 2515 2651 +1.50 3 GM Jones, Gawain C B 7.0 ENG M 2635 2632 +0.08 4 GM Hillarp Persson, Tiger 7.0 SWE M 2530 2530 +0.08 5 IM Das, Arghyadip 7.0 IND M 2470 2535 +0.79 6 GM Summerscale, Aaron P 7.0 ENG M 2422 2434 +0.15 7 IM D`Costa, Lorin A R 7.0 ENG M 2409 2601 +1.95 8 GM Cornette, Matthieu 6.5 FRA M 2548 2476 -0.62 9 GM Wells, Peter K 6.5 ENG M 2492 2543 +0.75 10 IM Smith, Axel 6.5 SWE M 2480 2412 -0.52 11 IM Hunt, Adam C 6.5 ENG M 2458 2475 +0.35 12 IM Pert, Richard G 6.5 ENG M 2455 2477 +0.38 13 GM Arkell, Keith C 6.5 ENG M 2418 2429 +0.37 14 IM Houska, Jovanka 6.5 ENG F 2415 2573 +2.03 15 IM Slavin, Alexei 6.5 RUS M 2400 2529 +1.46 16 IM Bates, Richard A 6.5 ENG M 2386 2365 -0.05 17 IM Mikkelsen, Nikolaj 6.5 DEN M 2381 2379 +0.13 18 FM Weber, Tom 6.5 LUX M 2355 2486 +1.68 19 Stoma, Pawel 6.5 POL M 2316 2294 -0.02 20 GM Tikkanen, Hans 6.0 SWE M 2586 2389 -1.81

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Source- Firstpost.com