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KIIT Festival: Grachev wins, Rathanvel third

by Priyadarshan Banjan - 02/06/2016

The annual KIIT International Festival was held from 23 May to 29 May in the KIIT University campus in Bhubaneswar. The tournament had a time control of 90 minutes with 30 seconds increment from move one and a rating average of 2050 — good my Indian standards. Russians GM Boris Grachev and GM Ivan Popov took the first and second place, but the Indian surprise was V.S. Rathanvel (2315), who had the tournament of his life! An illustrated report.

KIIT Festival: Grachev wins, Rathanvel third

As V.S. Rathanvel played the final few moves of his first round game against T. Purushothaman (1953), he would have hardly thought that he would end up finishing third in the tournament. The fourteen-year-old thirtieth seed, though, began to show excellent results in the games that followed.

 

The annual KIIT International Festival was held from 23 May to 29 May in the KIIT University campus in Bhubaneswar. The tournament had a time control of 90 minutes with 30 seconds increment from move one and a rating average of 2050 — good by Indian standards.

 

Bhubaneswar is metamorphosing into a place for well-organized chess events, but what was baffling in this year's edition was the unavailability of live games or even PGN for that matter.

Russian GM Boris Grachev (2639) was unbeaten in the course of ten rounds, scoring 8.5/10 at a rating performance of 2702. He was clear first by a point's margin. [Photo: Sa Kannan]

His country-mate GM Ivan Popov (2645), the top seed, had to settle for 7.5/10, second place finish. [Photo: Sa Kannan]

CM V.S. Rathanvel (2315) had the tournament of his life after his first round surprise draw. He scored 7.5/10 and stayed undefeated scoting an IM-norm. [Photo: Rupali Mullick]

He beat two grandmasters and drew with four of them, all Russians, to clock a rating performance of 2539 for a third place finish. Indeed, a splendid performance by the youngster from Tamil Nadu.

GM Diptayan Ghosh (2562) performed at par to finish with 7.5/10 as well.

Raghunandan Srihari (2280) scored 7.0/10, performing at 2536 and finishing at 11th place for a splendid IM-norm. [Photo: Rupali Mullick]

IM Praggnanandhaa created a storm by scoring his final IM-norm and performing at 2536, crossing the 2400-mark. [Photo: Rupali Mullick]

The games in progress [Photo: Rupali Mullick]

The prize-winners [Photo: Sa Kannan]

The spacious playing arena that will also be hosting the World Junior Championship 2016 in August 2016. [Photo: Rupali Mullick]

Overall, a fantastic venue and a well organised tournament, but non availability of games for a tournament of such stature, and also hardl any presence of tournament pictures was a dampener. [Photo: Sa Kannan]

Final Standings:

Rk. SNo     Name Typ sex FED Rtg Club/City Pts.  TB1   TB2   TB3  K rtg+/-
1 2   GM Grachev Boris     RUS 2639 RUS 8,5 62,0 55,5 56,75 10 10,4
2 1   GM Popov Ivan     RUS 2645 RUS 7,5 61,0 55,5 46,75 10 -5,6
3 30   CM Rathanvel V S     IND 2315 TN 7,5 57,5 52,5 46,00 20 58,6
4 6   IM Ghosh Diptayan     IND 2562 WB 7,5 57,5 52,0 45,75 10 1,9
5 8   GM Rahman Ziaur     BAN 2521 BAN 7,5 56,5 51,5 45,25 10 -2,3
6 7   GM Mozharov Mikhail     RUS 2560 RUS 7,5 56,5 51,5 44,25 10 -3,9
7 4   GM Amonatov Farrukh     TJK 2614 TJK 7,5 56,5 51,5 43,25 10 -7,4
8 10   GM Gagare Shardul     IND 2514 MAH 7,5 56,0 50,5 44,00 10 -2,5
9 54     Sidhant Mohapatra     IND 2239 ODI 7,5 49,0 45,0 36,75 20 20,2
10 11   GM Gleizerov Evgeny     RUS 2508 RUS 7,0 63,0 57,0 44,25 10 1,9
11 38   FM Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari     IND 2280 KAR 7,0 62,0 57,0 44,75 20 67,2
12 20   FM Praggnanandhaa R     IND 2368 TN 7,0 59,5 54,0 42,75 20 46,8
13 19   GM Laxman R.R.     IND 2397 ICF 7,0 58,5 53,5 43,75 10 7,6
14 14     Gusain Himal     IND 2440 CHND 7,0 58,0 52,5 40,75 10 -1,2
15 3   GM Grigoryan Karen H.     ARM 2616 ARM 7,0 57,5 52,5 41,00 10 -16,1

For the complete ranking list, click here.

 


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