The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Phoobalan has the last laugh

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Phoobalan has the last laugh

CHENNAI: P. Phoobalan of ICF scored over Stany of Karnataka to tie for the first place and win the first Citadel International FIDE-rating chess tournament on superior tie-break score here on Friday. Phoobalan pocketed Rs. 50,000.

Overnight leader Praveen Kumar lost a pawn but had two bishops and his draw offer was accepted by Ramnath Bhuvanesh. On the second board, M.R. Venkatesh crushed O.T. Anilkumar.

Decisive game

In the all-important encounter which decided the champion, Phoobalan won a bishop in Stany’s time pressure to tie for the top spot on 8.5 points along with Praveen and Venkatesh. Praveen was unlucky as many of his opponents lost in the last round and his tie-break score nosedived, pushing him to second place. Venkatesh remained undefeated and took the third spot.

Kolkata’s FIDE Master Joydeep Dutta had a brilliant tournament and finished fourth. D.V. Sundar, Honorary Secretary, AICF, distributed the prizes.

Top results (10th round): Praveen Kumar drew with Ramnath Bhuvanesh; M.R. Venkatesh bt O.T. Anilkumar; G.A. Stany lost to Phoobalan; M.S. Thejkumar bt Arjun Tiwari.

Final placings (in tie-break order): 1-3. P. Phoobalan (ICF), C. Praveen Kumar (TN), M.R. Venkatesh (BPCL) 8.5/10 each; 4-7. Joydeep Dutta (WB), Ramnath Bhuvanesh (TN), M.S. Thejkumar (Rly), M. Vinoth Kumar (TN) 8 each; 8-23. G.A. Stany (Kar), O.T. Anilkumar (Ker), K. Ratnakaran (Rly), R. Balasubramaniam (ICF), V.A.V. Rajesh (TN), Sudhakar Babu (IB), Abhishek Das (Jha), Syed Anwar Shazuli (ICF), Debasish Mukherjee (WB), T.J. Suresh Kumar (ICF), M.B. Muralidharan (Ker), Santu Mondal (WB), G. Akash (TN), J. Ramakrishna (Andhra Bank), Rupankar Nath (WB) and M.V. Lakshmi Narayanan (TN) 7.5 each. — Arvind Aaron

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