421 players participated, against an expected 500, in the 5th Mangalore FIDE Rated International Open Chess Tournament 2011, which concluded here today on 23-07-2011. Against the reported expectation of 5 GM participants only 3 ( GM Laxman R R 2455 of Indian Coach Factory, GM Thipsay Praveen M 2444 of Maharashtra & GM Sriram Jha 2421 of Delhi) appeared in the players list!
In the 11 Round tournament an unexpected winner emerged in the form of Abhishek Das (Elo 2340, seeded 22nd at the beginning of the tournament) of South Western Railways, who scored a much creditable 9.5 points out of a possible 11!
In the last round, on the second board, Abhishek played a nice game to defeat IM Konguvel (8 pts, TN, Elo 2400) sitting behind the black pieces, making him reach 9.5 points where no one else challenged him for the first prize! On the top board, IM Suvrajit Saha (2362) of West Bengal, playing white, drew IM Shyam Nikil P (2398) of TN to secure the second spot on a better tie break with 9 points! IM Tejkumar MS (2448) of SWRly defeated IM Saptarshi Roy (2385) of Railways with black to reach on 9 points & secured the 3rd spot with a better tie breaking score over IM Shyam Nikil who also reached on 9 points; Shyam Nikil finished 4th!
Karnataka lad GA Stany (2435) secured the fifth position with 8.5points & a better tie break score! In the last round, playing black, he drew IM Sivananda B.S (2396) of Karnataka on 4th board. IM Sangma Rahul (2359,Delhi) who defeated IM Nitin S (2365) on board 5, IM Shivananda B S (2396, Karnataka), IM Himanshu Sharma (2428, Haryana) who defeated Premnath R (2271) on board 7, playing black, IM Praveen Kumar C (2325, Indian Coach Factory) who defeated Shreyansh Dakhlia (2298), playing black & Karthikeyan Murali (2122,Tamilnadu) who defeated IM Anwesh Upadhyaya (2429), playing black, completed the top ten!
The entire tournament was well fought in such a fierce way that the 3 participating GMs failed to find themselves in the TOP 10 & much to the amusement of the chess lovers the highest standing among the GMs was that of veteran GM Praveen Thipsay who managed to stay at the 20th position with 8 points and better tie breaks;
GMs R.R. Laxman & Sriram Jha finished 26th & 32th respectively! The total prize money of Rs/-5,55,555 was well spent on this great tournament as from the first round onwards the prizes were never guaranteed to any player in the tournament & till the last round for each of the prize winning positions the fight was up to the hilt and the GM titles & IM titles never created any fear in the minds of the serious fighters of this wonderful tournament!
Photos by CHESS GM PROJECT participant Karthik Jagannatha.
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