India Take More Top Slots Sans Title

India Take More Top Slots Sans Title
By Arvind Aaron

The Asian Continental Chess Championships was a great success for Salem A R Saleh of United Arab Emirates and wim Mitra Hejazipour of Iran. In men or open section, India recorded a big success picking up three of the five World Cup qualifying slots.
Surya S Ganguly, Sethuraman and Vidit Gujrathi qualified while Abhijeet Gupta lost and missed while Sasikiran drew top seed and missed qualifying.

GM Salem A R Saleh and Ganguly tied for first with 7/9 each. For the third place, Sethuraman, Vidit and Jianchao (Chn) scored 6½ and qualified for the FIDE World Cup.

The Women’s section did not end well for the Indians. China’s Shen Yang spoilt Vijayalakshmi’s event. Mitra Hejazipour and Shen Yang tied for first on 7/9.
Of the three Indians in the top three boards, Pratyusha drew Saduakassova (Kaz) while Mary Ann and Vijayalakshmi lost. Vijayalakshmi and Pratyusha finished third and fourth with 6½.  WIM Pratyusha had a better rating performance than Mitra and made a WGM result.

Champion Mitra Hejazipour lost two games. Both were to Indians – Padmini Rout and Vijayalakshmi.

More Indians finished in the top at Al-Ain than the start rank and it was a success. We did better than China taking six of the top ten places in men/open.