Abhijeet Gupta beats Aleksej Aleksandrov to clinch 18th Delhi Grandmasters Open

Photo: Niklesh Jain/ ChessBase India

India’s GM Abhijeet Gupta beat Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belrus in the 10th and final round on Thursday to win the 18th Delhi Open International Grandmasters Chess Championship in New Delhi.

Starting the final game half a point behind the Belarussian, the 30-year old Gupta secured a win in 37 moves to seal the top prize with 8.5 points.

The Indian with an ELO rating of 2603 played consistently right through the tournament with a loss to fellow GM and compatriot Karthik Venkataraman in round three being the only blip.

Gupta bounced back strongly to score 6.5 points from the last seven rounds, following his third-round loss to Karthik. Aleksandrov who won the title in 2013 and led the field till the penultimate round, had to settle for second spot. Gupta, a five-time Commonwealth champion, took home the winner’s purse of Rs 6.5 lakh.

Karthikeyan Murali (ELO rating 2606), who was the top-ranked Indian in the tournament and the third seed, beat Florian Kaczur of Hungary in the final round to finish 11th with 7.5 points.

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	5	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2603	Del	8,5	0,0	61,0	65,0
2	8	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	BLR	2592	BLR	8,0	0,0	62,5	67,0
3	2	GM	Ponkratov Pavel	RUS	2622	RUS	8,0	0,0	58,5	63,5
4	6	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	GEO	2598	GEO	8,0	0,0	57,0	62,0
5	59	FM	Pranesh M	IND	2317	TN	8,0	0,0	57,0	60,5
6	7	GM	Yakubboev Nodirbek	UZB	2597	UZB	7,5	0,0	62,0	67,0
7	10	GM	Mchedlishvili Mikheil	GEO	2578	GEO	7,5	0,0	59,5	65,5
8	14	GM	Fedorov Alexei	BLR	2562	BLR	7,5	0,0	59,0	63,0
9	38	IM	Krishna C R G	IND	2436	AP	7,5	0,0	57,5	61,5
10	19	GM	Debashis Das	IND	2523	Ori	7,5	0,0	56,5	62,0
11	3	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	IND	2606	TN	7,5	0,0	56,5	60,5
12	57	IM	Rathnakaran K.	IND	2329	S Rlys	7,5	0,0	55,5	60,5
13	25	GM	Rios Cristhian Camilo	COL	2498	COL	7,5	0,0	55,5	60,0
14	15	GM	Lalith Babu M R	IND	2558	AP	7,5	0,0	54,5	59,5
15	24	GM	Harsha Bharathakoti	IND	2502	Tel	7,5	0,0	53,5	58,0
16	4	GM	Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo	PER	2606	PER	7,0	0,0	62,0	68,0
17	23	GM	Stupak Kirill	BLR	2506	BLR	7,0	0,0	61,5	66,0
18	37	GM	Lugovskoy Maxim	RUS	2453	RUS	7,0	0,0	61,0	66,5
19	28	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	IND	2479	AP	7,0	0,0	60,5	65,5
20	36	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	IND	2458	TN	7,0	0,0	59,5	65,0
21	21	GM	Visakh N R	IND	2518	TN	7,0	0,0	59,0	63,0
22	1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	TJK	2631	TJK	7,0	0,0	58,5	64,0
23	41	IM	Das Sayantan	IND	2424	Wes	7,0	0,0	58,5	64,0
24	33	IM	Taher Yoseph Theolifus	INA	2462	INA	7,0	0,0	57,5	62,5
25	13	GM	David Alberto	ITA	2562	ITA	7,0	0,0	57,5	61,5
26	42	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	UZB	2422	UZB	7,0	0,0	57,0	62,0
27	9	GM	Goganov Aleksey	RUS	2583	RUS	7,0	0,0	56,0	60,5
28	43	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	TJK	2420	TJK	7,0	0,0	54,0	59,0
29	70		Pranav V	IND	2265	TN	7,0	0,0	54,0	58,0
30	61	FM	Srihari L R	IND	2302	TN	7,0	0,0	53,0	58,0