Karthikeyan and Tania are Commonwealth Champions

Penultimate Round

Decisive results in top seven boards in the penultimate round paved the way for an exciting finish of Commonwealth chess championship

On top board, playing with dark pieces in King’s Indian Defence game, sixth seed Debashis Das outplayed overnight joint leader Vaibhav Suri in 70 moves to take his tally to six and half points while P Karthikeyan joined Debashis at pole position after beating his railway teammate and overnight joint leader S Nitin in 37 moves arrived out of Panno variation of King’s Indian Defence.

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National Champion Lalith Babu M R and former national champion G Akash were the other two in the leaders’ board as they defeated Sankalp Gupta and Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh respectively in the eighth round.

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Pairings/Results

Round 8

Final Round

International Master P Karthikeyan came up with an inspired performance in the final round to crush former national champion G Akash and annexed the gold medal in the Commonwealth Chess Championship 2018.

Playing black side of Najdorf variation of Sicilian Defence game, Chennai ICF employee Karthikeyan was in his elements in the final round as Akash found no defense and struggled on all parts of the board. It took 49 moves for Karthikeyan to wrap the issues. While other two overnight leaders Lalith Babu and Debashis Das shook the hands after 37 moves signaling a drawn result and title to Karthikeyan.

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Local favourite Vaibhav Suri won the silver while the bronze medal went to Debashis Das. Vaibhav defeated Karthik Venkataraman in the final round.

The Women’s Championship was won by Tania Sachdev after beating Shantanu Bhambure in the final round. The Silver here went to Mahalakshmi M while Kiran Manisha Mohanty finished with bronze medal performance.

It was Indian domination in age categories as 11 Gold out of 14 won by the Indian players.

In a colourful closing ceremony Mr. DV Sundar, Vice President FIDE, Mr. Bharat Singh Chauhan, President Commonwealth Chess Association & Secretary All India Chess Federation, Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard, renowned Chess Trainer & Author and Mr. SK Verma, Senior Advocate Supreme Court of India gave away the cash prizes and medals.

Final Ranking after 9 Rounds