1st Gujarat GM Open: Telangana’s Harsha Bharathakoti achieves Grandmaster title

Harsha Bharathakoti

1st Gujarat International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament

IM Harsha Bharathakoti has become the second Grandmaster from Telangana after having completed all the norm requirements in the 1st Gujarat Grandmasters Open chess tournament underway at Karnavati Club, Ahmedabad.

Category A

A total of 250 players including eighteen Grandmasters and four Women Grandmasters are in the fray of 1st Gujarat Grandmasters Open Tournament.

Gujarat’s Maulik Raval rated 1993 caused major upset in the first round. He held second-seed GM Predke Alexandr of Russia to a draw in 24 moves.

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Round two and three had been an easy outing for the top-seeded Grandmasters with no upsets on top boards. GM Amonatov Farrukh faced few tense moments in his third round game against FM Rathanvel V.S. But the top-rated Tajikistani Grandmaster slowly outplayed his opponent.

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In the fourth round, IM Harsha Bharathakoti defeated GM Amaontov Farrukh in a highly complex Pirc defence- middlegame.  The 17-year-old got all the three GM norms including the third one in Abu Dhabi Masters since his rating then was 2492 he had to wait for the title. With this victory, Harsha successfully crossed the 2500 rating threshold to become India’s latest Grandmaster.

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In-form IM Stany G.A emerged as the sole leader with an unbeaten winning streak 6.0/6.  In the fifth round, he defeated  GM Sivuk Vitaly, followed by a steady win against GM Babujian Levon of Armenia in the sixth round.

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Pairings

Round 7 on 2018/10/09 at 16:30 hrs

Category B (Below Elo-2000)

Category-B tournament concluded yesterday.  Three players tied for top spot with 8.5/10 points. Karnataka’s Sharan Rao was declared the winner with a better tie-break score, followed by Safarov Donior (Uzbekistan) and  Sarthak Patel of Gujarat in second and third place respectively. A total of 352 players participated in this category.

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds

Official Website