Negi wins Philadelphia Open

Teen Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi proved his extraordinary chess skills by winning the Philadelphia International Open tournament, beating illustrious names including GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

Negi (2529 Elo points), the second youngest Grandmaster in chess history, signed pact with Woman Grandmaster Eesha Karvade in the final round on Monday. He finished a clear first with seven points out of a possible nine and took the winner's purse of US $2000, in a field of 39 players from five countries, including 14 Indians.

The 15-year-old Delhi-lad beat Ganguly (2631), over 100 Elo points ahead of him and the top seed in the tournament, and other higher-rated Indian GMs Abhijit Kunte (2554) and G N Gopal (2572).

It is certainly a massive triumph for Negi, who had earlier this year shared the Kaupthing Open title with Romanian Andrei Istratescu in Luxemburg.

Grandmaster S Arun Prasad (2492), who had held Negi during the

course of the tournament, finished second, just half point adrift of his younger compatriot in the tournament, which was played in the build up to the US $400,000 36th World Open, a nine-round event which kicked off at the same venue on Monday.

Prasad drew his final round game with black against Gabriel Battaglini and scored 6.5 for clear second and US $1,000. He also earned his 2500 rating during the tournament and a fourth norm.

Final standings:

1 GM Parimarjan Negi (7), 2 IM Arun Prasad (6), 3 GM Julio J Becerra (6), 4 GM G N Gopal (6), 5 Gabriel Battaglini (6), 6 WGM Eesha Karavade (6), 7 GM Surya She Ganguly (5), 8 GM Abhijit Kunte (5), 9 IM K Rathnakaran (5), 10 IM Dean J Ippolito (5), 11 IM Michael A Mulyar (5), 12 FM Bindi Cheng (5), 13 IM Rajaram Laxman (5), 14 FM Charles A Galofre (5), 15 Eric Hansen (5), 16 IM Marani Venkatesh (4), 17 WGM Nisha Mohata (4), 18 WGM Swathi Ghate (4), 19 FM Nelson Castaneda (4), 20 FM Todd D Andrews (4), 21 FM Daniel A Yeager (4), 22 WIM Kiran Manisha Mohanty (4), 23 FM John D Bick (4), 24 Marc Widmaier (4), 25 James Chan (4), 26 William Fisher (4), 27 WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy (3), 28 Samuel Shankland (3), 29 WIM Sai Meera (3), 30 WFM Alisa Melekhina (3), 31 Keith Mackinnon (3), 32 Michael S Katz (3), 33 Kimani A Stancil (3), 34 Adarsh Jayakumar (3), 35 IM David Pruess (2), 36 Shelly Mays (2), 37 IM Ronald Burnett (1), 38 Klaus D Kuenitz (1), 39 Dan Tecker (1).