Parimarjan Negi wins Politiken Cup in Denmark

Copenhagen (Denmark): Indian chess player Parimarjan Negi continued his brilliant form and clinched the Politiken Cup 2013 after emerging with a fine score of nine out of a maximum possible 10 points, here on Sunday.

Negi, interestingly, won the same tournament in 2009, but this time around he finished a full point clear of the field, which included top seed Ivan Cheparinov, who has also been a second for former World champion Veselin Topalov. Negi, who had won two titles in US recently, scored eight wins and two draws in the Open tournament, which featured about 600 players from all over. Negi`s performance rating was 2769 which will help him gain about 16-18 valuable ELO points and move past 2660. Negi was one of the three prominent players to remain unbeaten alongside Edouard Romain of France and Jan Timman of the Netherlands, both of whom were among the bunch of seven players tied for second, one point behind the Indian. Among Negi`s notable wins was one over former World Championship contender veteran 75-year-old Lajos Portisch, also called the Hungarian `Botwinnik`. The tournament included another World Championship contender, Jan Timman, but the Indian did not come up against him. Negi had drawn his game with Cheparinov and his only other draw was against David Bekker Jensen. His wins were against Morten Nielsen, Janus Christensen, Jonathan Grant, Portisch, Krzysztof Bulski, Sebastien Maze, Hrant Melkumyan and Sabino Brunello. Parimarjan, who was the lone Indian invited for this prestigious event of Scandinavia, will continue to stay in Denmark and Norway for few more days to prepare for the World Cup 2013 scheduled from 10th August in Tromso, Norway. PTI