Sethuraman wins Hyderabad International GM chess tournament

Chennai-based Grandmaster Sethuraman S P won the premier section of 2nd Hyderabad International Grandmasters Chess tournament after drawing with GM Merab Gagunashvili of Georgia in the eleventh and final round on Tuesday.

Hyderabad: Chennai-based Grandmaster Sethuraman S P won the premier section of 2nd Hyderabad International Grandmasters Chess tournament after drawing with GM Merab Gagunashvili of Georgia in the eleventh and final round here on Tuesday.

Sethuraman finished with eight and half points out of a possible eleven and finished at tied first along with top seed Ivan Popov of Russia, who defeated Georgian Grandmaster Levan Pantsulaia in the final round. But better Buchholz tie break score helped Sethuraman to finish at top while Popov had to settle for runner-up position, a release from the organizers said. Vidit Santosh Gujarathi beat Georgian Grandmaster Tornike Sanikidze to take his tally to eight points and tied for the third spot along with IM Mozharov Mikhail of Russia. Better tie break score favoured the Indian to lift the second runner-up trophy while Mozharov ended fourth. Sethuraman pocketed the winner`s purse of Rs two lakh while Popov took home Rs 1.5 lakh and Vidit got the check of Rs 1.25 lakh. Andhra youngster Ravi Teja S brought cheers to the home crowd as he added his name to the list of International Master norm achievers after defeating Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna in the final round. The tournament produced as many as seven International Norms. Besides Mozharov`s Grandmaster Norm, six young Indian players Prince Bajaj of Delhi, Aniruddha Deshpande of Maharashtra, Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad, Ravi Teja S of Andhra Pradesh, Kunal M and Akash PC Iyer of Tamil Nadu secured their International Master Norms during this event. Women Grandmaster Bhakti Kulkarni was adjudged as best player among womens while Tigran Petrosyan of Armenia and Visakh N R finished first among Junior and Sub-Junior categories. Meanwhile, third seed Varun V of Andhra Pradesh won the Category B tournament of the event that ended today. Varun logged eight points out of a possible ten to pocket Rs. 100,000 winner`s purse out of a total prize pool of five lakh.