The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Gopal finishes tied third

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Gopal finishes tied third

NEW DELHI: Grandmaster G.N. Gopal produced his strongest finish in an open international field when he tied for the third place with six others in the Gibtelecom Masters chess tournament at Gibraltar on Thursday.

Hikaru Nakamura of the U.S. won the title, beating China’s Bu Ziangzhi in the two tiebreak games after they tied at eight points from 10 rounds.

Earlier in the final round, Gopal drew with Moldova’s GM Viktor Bologan, seeded six, in Modern Defence and finished with 7.5 points.

Seeded 30th in the 203-player field, Gopal eventually took the sixth spot due to inferior tiebreak score.

More significant was the fact that Gopal, rated at 2528, performed at a whopping 2703-level and picked up 24 rating points.

Among the female participants, D. Harika finished third after a four-way tie at the top with 6.5 points.

The results (involving Indians): 10th round: G. N. Gopal (7.5) drew with Viktor Bologan (Mda, 7.5); Sandipan Chanda (7) bt Anna Muzychuk (Slo, 6); Sondre Waage Tofte (Nor, 5.5) lost to D. Harika (6.5); Gildas Goldsztein (Fra, 5.5) drew with N. Srinath (5.5); Aarthie Ramaswamy (5) bt Pal Andreas Hansen (Nor, 4); Kruttika Nadig (5) bt Stephen Fairbairn (Can, 4).

Indians’ standings: 6. Gopal, 17. Chanda, 26. Harika, 73. Srinath, 104. Kruttika, 106. Aarthie.

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