Iuldachev wins Parsvanath chess

Grandmaster Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan pipped Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan and Surya Shekhar Ganguly to win the Rs 400,000 Parsvanath International Chess championship in Delhi on Thursday.

Iuldachev, Kotsur and Ganguly were tied on nine points each after victories in the final round but the Kazakh and Uzbek were ahead of Ganguly on the basis of a better progressive score.

As the two foreign Grandmasters were also tied on progressive score, Iuldachev was declared winner after the toss of coin.

Ganguly lagged behind in the progressive score due to his second round defeat.

The winner took a purse of Rs 100,000 and the first and second runner-up got Rs 60,000 and Rs 40,000 respectively.

Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda, GM Georgy Timoshenko of Ukraine and IM Sriram Jha were second at 8.5 points.

Playing white, Iuldachev recorded a quick win over GM Dibyendu Barua while Kotsur outwitted IM C S Gokhale in 27 moves.

National champion Ganguly, defeated GM Serik Temirbav of Kazakhstan in the 11th and final round.

Determined to win his game, Ganguly refused a draw offered by his opponent on the 12th move and deviated slightly from the obvious game against a Sicilian defence, employed by his opponent, to create a strong position for himself.

In the middle game, Ganguly had a double bishop and a pawn up to the Kazakh after which he sacrificed and exchanged his pieces to emerge victor with an easy ending on the 76th move.

Koneru Humpy, the only Indian GM who was offered a draw by Kotsur in this tournament, finished her campaign on a disappointing note, slumping to her third defeat to end up joint fourth.

Humpy, who made it to second position in the 10th round despite a poor start, lost to International Master Sriram Jha in 42 moves.

GM Chanda defeated IM-elect R R Laxman in 37 moves with attacking schemes in the Sicilian Roseline opening game.

Parimarjan Negi, who finished on 6.5 points, was declared the best Delhi junior player.

Deepsen Gupta (7.5 points) won the best Under-16 player award while Sandeep Y with 7 points was awarded the best player in the Under-12 category. G Muralikiran and V A V Rajesh tied with 6 points each for the honours in the Under-10 section.

In the other awards, Pallavi Dutta was adjudged the best Delhi woman player (4.5). Sahaj Grower and Samudra Kumar Girsa, with 5.5 points each, shared the best Delhi player under-2000 (Elo rating).

A Suresh Kumar, Piyush Pandey and Deepak Rai were adjudged the best unrated players of the tournament.