Sasikiran joint second in Sunway Sitges Open

The 5th Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival was a 10-round Swiss open which held from 14-23 December 2018 in the Hotel Sunway Playa Golf & Spa in Sitges, Spain. The tournament had attracted both experienced grandmasters like Vassily Ivanchuk and Sasikiran Krishnan, and also prodigies like Praggnanandhaa R and Nihal Sarin. Indians had the second-highest number of participation after the host country.

Sreeshwan Maralakshikari, U-12 Commonwealth Chess Champion 2018, created a big sensation after defeating GM Vassily Ivanchuk (who has 473 rating points more than him) in just 26 moves.

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Fourth-seeded GM Sasikiran Krishnan, who was leading the tournament until 8th round, faced a loss against top-seed GM Andreikin Dmitry of Russia. Sasikiran made a comeback in the next two rounds and tied for joint-second.

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Tournament Winner GM Alvar Alonso of Spain was the only player to reach a score of 8/10. There was a playoff among the top three players on 7.5 points.

GM Ernesto Inarkiev of Russia defeated GM Sasikiran Krishnan in the tiebreak for second place.

IM Krishna Teja scored his maiden GM norm

WGM Vaishali R was declared the woman’s champion. She took the 1.500 € cumulative first prize and was followed by WGM Natalia Pogonina and WFM Cholleti Sahajasri.

Final Ranking after 10 rounds

Rk.		Name	FED	Pts.
1	GM	Alonso Rosell Alvar	ESP	8
2	GM	Inarkiev Ernesto	RUS	7.5
3	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	IND	7.5
4	GM	Andreikin Dmitry	RUS	7.5
5	GM	Dragnev Valentin	AUT	7.5
6	GM	Santos Ruiz Miguel	ESP	7.5
7	GM	Indjic Aleksandar	SRB	7.5
8	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	UKR	7.5
9	GM	Edouard Romain	FRA	7
10	GM	Vocaturo Daniele	ITA	7
11	GM	Santos Latasa Jaime	ESP	7
12	IM	Sosa Tomas	ARG	7
13	GM	Xu Xiangyu	CHN	7
14	GM	Kadric Denis	BIH	7
15	GM	Petrosyan Manuel	ARM	6.5
16	GM	Lagarde Maxime	FRA	6.5
17	GM	Romanov Evgeny	RUS	6.5
18	IM	Harutyunian Tigran K.	ARM	6.5
19	GM	Peralta Fernando	ARG	6.5
20	GM	Liang Awonder	USA	6.5
21	GM	Nihal Sarin	IND	6.5
22	IM	Krishna Teja N	IND	6.5
23	IM	Sadhwani Raunak	IND	6.5
24	IM	Gukesh D	IND	6.5
25	GM	Praggnanandhaa R	IND	6.5