Top seed Naiditsch wins Delhi GM Open chess title

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) Top seed M Arkadij Naiditsch had to settle for a draw against Italian GM David Alberto in the 10th and final round but it was enough for the Grandmaster from Azerbaijan to win the Delhi GM Open 2018 chess title, here today.

Naiditsch offered a draw after 18 moves with white pieces in a Caro-Kann exchange variation. With 8.5 points out of 10, Naiditsch finished on top by half a point over the rest of the field.

Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman managed to draw with Indian GM Karthikeyan Murali with the black pieces.

The game began on a Sicilian Defence where both the players were on their toes, move for move. In the end, the players settled for a draw in a rook endgame. Ziaur finished on 8 points and was tied for the second place.

IM Md Nubairshah Shaikh played with black against IM Vignesh NR and the game was a Caro Kann Defence. Vignesh played by risking his position and had to pay the price as Nubair found all the right moves to scoop up two pawns for free.

Nubair also finished with 8 points for a tied second place. Earlier, Nubair had already completed his first GM norm in the ninth round.

Hungarian GM Adam Horvath finished with four consecutive wins to also finish with eight points.

In the final round, he managed to defeat Akash PC Iyer who had earlier scored a GM norm.

Rahman, Nubairshah, and Horvath finished tied for the second position.

Besides Akash and Nubair scoring their GM norms, Sammed Shete and Kaustav Chatterjee also managed to complete their IM norm requirements.

The C-category being held simultaneously with 1273 players came to an end today. Local boy, Anirudh Jain, 13, won the event