Karthik Venkataraman emerges Champion in KIIT Chess Festival 2018

Report by I.A Vasudevan R R

IM Karthik Venkataraman, powered into a 9/10 performance, emerging the Champion after the tenth round of the KIIT Chess Festival International Open 2018 “A” category at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. Tirupati based Karthik, scored eight wins and two draws, coming up with ELO 2740 performance rating that also fetched him his second GM Norm.

In the crucial final round, Karthik showed greater nerves to overcome the sturdy Vietnamese GM Tran Tuan Minh in a Grunfeld game that lasted 38 moves. Facing five Grandmasters in the last five rounds, Karthik came up with a whopping 4.5/5 in the home run, that put him a clear point ahead of celebrated rest. Karthik receives the winner’s cheque of Rupees Two lakhs out of total prize money of Rupees 12 lakhs.

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Grandmaster R R Laxman winning the Chennai Open 2018 set the trend, as GM Srinath Narayanan followed it up clinching the Kolkata Open 2018, with Karthik Venkataraman completing the hat-trick of GM tournament wins for Indians at KIIT Chess Festival, Bhuvaneswar.

Sharing the second spot with 8.0 points were GMs Rozum Ivan (Russia), Amonatov Farrukh (Tajikistan) and top seed Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukraine) in that order.

Further underlining the success of this tournament, is the achievement of two more Norms viz., WGM Norm for Varshini V and WIM Norm for Arpita Mukherjee.

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds