Karthikeyan Murali takes second place in Gibralter Masters

The 19-year-old grandmaster entered the tenth and final round of the Gibraltar International Chess Festival yesterday with 7 points from a possible nine. He finished second at the Masters tournament with a brilliant win against the tournament top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

The tournament was held in Caleta Hotel from January 23 to February 1, 2018, Gibraltar

Half a point ahead of Karthikeyan Murali was tournament winner Vladislav Artemiev of Russia. Artemiev finished the tournament on 8.5 points out of 10.

Karthikeyan went home richer by £20,000 second prize, while Artemiev was awarded the £25,000 cheque for first prize.

The Chennai grandmaster showed great character and temperament as he produced outstanding performance to put it across three grandmasters rated above 2700. His efforts have earned him a performance rating of 2747 which is an increase of 23 rating points.

[iframe border=”0″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true” width=”560″ height=”465″ src=”//www.chess.com/emboard?id=5117676″][/iframe]

[iframe border=”0″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true” width=”560″ height=”465″ src=”//www.chess.com/emboard?id=5117678″][/iframe]

[iframe border=”0″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true” width=”560″ height=”465″ src=”//www.chess.com/emboard?id=5117682″][/iframe]

The other Indian who performed well is the former Indian Champion GM Rohit Lalith Babu; finishing eighth.

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.
1	11	GM	Artemiev Vladislav	RUS	2709	8,5
2	49	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	IND	2570	8,0
3	8	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	RUS	2720	7,5
4	19	GM	Howell David W L	ENG	2685	7,5
5	27	GM	Anton Guijarro David	ESP	2642	7,5
6	6	GM	Navara David	CZE	2738	7,0
7	20	GM	Grandelius Nils	SWE	2682	7,0
8	55	GM	Lalith Babu M R	IND	2547	7,0
9	9	GM	Le Quang Liem	VIE	2714	7,0
10	17	GM	Saric Ivan	CRO	2690	7,0
11	3	GM	So Wesley	USA	2765	7,0
12	4	GM	Yu Yangyi	CHN	2764	7,0
13	1	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	FRA	2780	7,0
14	13	GM	Adams Michael	ENG	2701	7,0
	28	GM	Alekseenko Kirill	RUS	2637	7,0
16	5	GM	Nakamura Hikaru	USA	2749	7,0
17	26	GM	Edouard Romain	FRA	2643	7,0
18	12	GM	Mamedov Rauf	AZE	2703	7,0
19	21	GM	Eljanov Pavel	UKR	2680	7,0
20	23	GM	Melkumyan Hrant	ARM	2660	7,0
21	14	GM	Matlakov Maxim	RUS	2700	7,0
22	74	GM	Tan Zhongyi	CHN	2502	7,0
23	62	GM	Muzychuk Mariya	UKR	2540	6,5
24	2	GM	Aronian Levon	ARM	2767	6,5
25	41	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2590	6,5
26	36	GM	Lagarde Maxime	FRA	2604	6,5
27	80	IM	Gukesh D	IND	2497	6,5
28	18	GM	Adhiban B.	IND	2689	6,5
29	35	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	KAZ	2604	6,5
30	15	GM	Cheparinov Ivan	GEO	2691	6,5