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There's no stopping Anji (Lalith Babu!)

by Shahid Ahmed - 24/09/2017

After the third ChessBase India online prize money tournament held in collaboration with DBCA ended, we received the following message: "My son (9 yrs) participated (scored 2.5) had the experience to play with few opponents with FIDE rating >2300....that's great! For us who stay in small cities like Durgapur, (WB) where we rarely have big tournaments such initiatives in a regular basis will help to motivate young budding players." It's such feedback that keeps us going! The event was won by none other than Mr. Playchess - Lalith Babu (Anji) and he goes back home with Rs.12,500. Full report, with games and final standings.

After winning the 1st Edition of ChessBase Online Blitz Tournament, GM Lalith Babu was poised to win the 2nd Edition, however due to some technical error, he could not complete the tournament. He showed his indomitable fighting spirit to win the 3rd Edition organized by Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy and ChessBase India. Lalith Babu now has 25 points out of 26 games in the prize money tournaments organized on the Playchess server!


The 3rd Chessbase Online Prize Money tournament took place on 10th September 2017 to celebrate the 12th anniversary of Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy. Despite the World Cup ongoing in Tbilisi, Georgia, 15 Grandmasters out of 50 in our country participated along with 14 International Masters and 1 Woman Grandmaster. The total prize money was also increased to ₹50000 having the first prize as ₹12500.

Top 20 seeds of the event:

Name Rating Playchess ID
GM G.N.Gopal 2589 ilusionist60
GM Aravindh Chithambaram 2579 Refresh
GM Diptayan Ghosh 2562 diptayan
GM Vaibhav Suri 2560 irus1997
GM M Shyam Sundar 2547 kereslover
GM Lalith Babu 2525 Anji
GM Kannappan Priyadharshan 2515 slogger
GM Vishnu Prasanna 2538 Fidodido
IM Abhimanyu Puranik 2509 pabh
GM Abhijit Kunte 2505 Abhijit Kunte
IM P Karthikeyan 2497 Chennaikramnik
GM Debashis Das 2493 debashis das
IM Nihal Sarin 2485 nihalsarin
GM Deepan Chakkravarthy 2466 j2d
GM Ankit Rajpara 2465 twentyseven
GM Dibyendu Barua 2448 Dibyendu Barua
IM Swayams Mishra 2444 Mr bh6
IM Sayantan Das 2436 Ambitious
IM P.Shyaamnikhil 2434 Pshyaamnikhil

For the first time, it was a 3 minutes + 1 second increment time control event consisting of 10 rounds. (previously there had been no increment). It is not every day you get to play against India’s best and strongest by sitting in the comfort of your home.  It took place in the Vishy Anand Arena in the ChessBase India room on Playchess. The event started on time and got over by 8.30pm, so that everybody could walk to their dining room for dinner! Oh wait! Some were already playing in their dining room!


Top seed GM Lalith Babu (Playchess id Anji & Playchess Rating 2955) scored 9.0/10 won 3rd Edition of Chessbase Online Blitz Tournament

In the Round 7 of the tournament, Anji (Lalith Babu) smashed RATHNAKARAN (Rathnakaran K) in a miniature game. 

With this win Lalith Babu took home Rs.12,500. How does he do it? How is he so good at blitz? Well, his games speak for themselves. You can see how strong Lalith is in blitz by downloading all his ten games and replaying them on your computer.


IM Swayams Mishra scored 8 points and secured 2nd position after defeating Anji in the last round

After winning 25 consecutive Chessbase Online Blitz Tournament games, Anji (Lalith Babu) was halted by Mr bh6 (Swayams Mishra).


Reigning National Blitz Champion GM R R Laxman scored 8 points and finished at 3rd position

A clinical victory in the last round against Pshyamnikhil (P Shyamnikhil) helped Laxman secure 3rd position


A lucky victory against IM P Shyamnikhil in the last round pummeled GM Vishnu Prasanna to the 4th position scoring 7.5 points

GM Aravindh Chithambaram scored 7.5 points and secured 5th position

IM Nihal Sarin outwitted GM Aravindh Chithambaram in the 3rd round.


After having an amazing National Blitz, FM Mitrabha Guha (Babysnake) had a fantastic Chessbase Online Blitz Tournament and finished at 6th position scoring 7.5 points

FM Mitrabha Guha outplayed reigning National Challengers Champion GM Deepan Chakravarthi in a prolonged Rook & Pawn endgame:



IM Rathnakaran K scored 7 points finished at 7th position

IM Rathnakaran defeated one of the best blitz players of India IM Nihal Sarin:


R Ashwath is the only untitled player to finish in Top 10

He defeated the co-founder of DBCA and India's second Grandmaster, Dibyendu Barua



GM Dibyendu Barua, playing in his first ChessBase Online Tournament, finished at 10th position

Veteran GM Dibyendu Barua schooled future GM of West Bengal, Ambitious (Sayantan Das).


GM Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury wins fairplay award for restarting a match against Defence1234 (Shantanu Bhambure), despite his opponent getting disconnected and Saptarshi getting the full point
Here is the game from Round 5 where you can see Shantanu Bhambure reconnected the game several times and eventually won the game. ChessBase India decided to give a fairplay award of one year of ChessBase Premium Account to GM Saptarshi RoyChowdhury for showing excellent sportsman spirit. In this 

Final Standings with Prize money:

Rank Name Playchess ID Prize Money in Rs
1 GM Lalith Babu Anji 12500
2 IM Swayams Mishra Mr bh6 9000
3 GM Rajaram Laxman Laxman 7500
4 GM Vishnu Prasanna Fidodido 5000
5 GM Aravindh Chithambaram Refresh 3000
6 FM Mitrabha Guha Babysnake 2000
7 IM Rathnakaran K RATHNAKARAN 1750
8 IM Abhimanyu Puranik Pabh 1400
9 R Ashwath Csk 1250
10 GM Dibyendu Barua Dibyendu Barua 1000

Lucky prize winners

20 Attacker97 Sanjeev Nair
30 Sunganthan Suganand
40 Jekavitha J.E. Kavitha
50 Gavi Siddaya Gavi
60 Akbar_sh_007 Akbar Amir Ali Pirani
70 Sohamchess 64 Soham Datar


As always, we thank our tournament director and playchess head Halsagar Chincholimath for conducting the tournament smoothly.

GM R R Laxman, RSPB

I feel elated to state that the 3rd online playchess event was also  organised in an exemplary manner by Shri Barua chess academy and Chessbase India team.  Win or lose I will always cherish pleasant memories of these events and hope that more tournaments  of this stature will get underway in the forthcoming future.

 

WGM Soumya Swaminathan, PSPB
Thank you so much for organising the tournament, along with cb india , Halsagar & Dbca. Really appreciate it !
It was my 1st online tournament, a very good experience overall. It was very smoothly conducted infact. The last round delay was a very minor one, maybe max 5 mins, so it was not an issue at all. 


Priyadarshan Banjan for Nihal Sarin
Thank you to you, ChessBase India, and DBCA for organizing such a useful tournament.
Although Nihal could not play at his best, he did manage to beat Aravindh and Debs, and enjoyed it very much. Keep organizing more such events so that players can enjoy more of these.

 

Subrata Nandi, PhD  father of Samrat Nandi

Thanks to chessbase & DBCA to take such initiative.  Technical organisation was fantastic apart from the delay before the 10th round.  It was a fantastic experience to see a bunch top rated players joining the tournament. My son (9 yrs) participated (scored 2.5) had the experience to play with few opponents with FIDE rating >2300....that's great!!!

For us who stay in small cities like Durgapur, (WB) where we rarely have big tournaments such initiatives in a regular basis will help to motivate young budding players. Finally, may I request Chessbase to organise such tournaments in a regular basis at least once in a month maybe the last Sunday ('Super Sunday') in collaboration with DBCA or other academies in a regular basis. I guess many of us are ready to pay a monthly token entry fee. The number of rounds could have been reduced to 7.

Download all the games in PGN format

Final Standings of all participants