Grand Master Iniyan clinches Senior National chess championship

In the crucial tenth and penultimate round, Tamil Nadu grandmaster P Iniyan emerged sole leader with 8.5 points

Hyderabad: GM P Iniyan of Tamil Nadu won the 62nd Senior National chess championship and a prize money of Rs 6 lakhs with nine points despite tying with 15-year-old IM H. Goutham Krishna of Kerala, by virtue of a better Buchholz score at the Vignan University (Guntur) on Wednesday.

Goutham collected a purse of Rs 5 lakhs

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Among the six players who had scored 8.5 points each, GM Sasikiran Krishnan of PSPB had the highest tiebreak, to finish third, winning Rs. 4 lakhs, while IM Aronyak Ghosh of Railways and GM Abhijeet Gupta of PSPB settled for fourth and fifth places respectively.

Iniyan and former champion Abhijeet Gupta of PSPB had a quick and formal draw in the final round, arising from a Grunfeld defence by the latter. to wind up their engagements, Though Abhijeet was an exchange up, he could not carve a win out of it and settled for a draw.

Though Goutham and Viani had two pawns and a rook each in the endgame of a King’s Indian defence, the position of the pawns had a telling effect on the outcome of the result. While Goutham had unassailable sixth rank connected pawns, Viani’s isolated pawns were stationed only in the third rank. Viani resigned when his position on the board worsened further.

Earlier in the crucial tenth and penultimate round, Tamil Nadu grandmaster P Iniyan emerged sole leader with 8.5 points, by inflicting a defeat on the hitherto unbeaten legend and four-time champion K Sasikiran of PSPB.

After an agonising defeat in the ninth round, former champion Abhijeet Gupta bounced back into recognition by beating Kashish Manoj Jain of Maharashtra in just thirty moves. In the French defence by Abhijeet, Kashish voluntarily made his kingside wide open. Abhijeet counter-attacked, following the same fashion, but his powerful two bishops, rook and the queen’s heavy attack made the difference.

Lavu Rathaiah, Chairman of Vignan University, KVV Sarma, Advisor, Andhra Chess Association, which organised the event, and K Jagadish, Secretary ACA, gave away the prizes.