The talented Indian Youngster S.P Sethuraman shone at the hyderabad open winning the tournament with an excellent score of 8.5/11. Sethuraman is one of the bright Indian hopefuls who will surely make his presence felt on the world stage soon enough! He boasts of a rating of 2553 to which he added another healthy 20 points in the tournament. His main reason for victory was his tenacious defense in minus positions. He had some really bad positions but he didnt give up and fought right upto the end! The reward was the first place in the tournament.
From L-R 1st Sethuraman, 3rd Vidit Gujarathi and 2nd Ivan Popov!
Ivan Popov showed his true colours in this tournament and the reason why he is rated 2652. He dispatched the Caro kann with white colour in this tournament against Thejkumar and Lalith Babu and also delivered with the same opening with the black pieces against Siddharth Ravichandran! He is truly one of the best exponents of Caro Kann in the world.
On the 3rd place was Vidit Gujarathi who continues to impress everyone with his strong performance! He finished not only 3rd but also broke into the 2600 league after this tournament. One of the best points of the tournament for Vidit was his mental toughness. He had a winning position against Sethuraman in round 10. A win would have sealed the top spot for him. But he lost that game. However in the final round after this disastrous incident, he still gave his best and beat a very strong player Sanikidze Tornike 2553 with the white pieces!! Vidit is surely a player to look out for!
Usually the success of such tournaments are seen from the point as to how many players made norms. In Hyderabad there were lot of players who made their norms making it a very memorable tournament.
GM norm was achieved by IM Mikhail Mozarov. He already has 4 GM norms, this was his 5th! He will be the next GM from Russia soon.
IM norms were achieved by Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad, who with his solid style was dispatching GMs with ease and made his IM norm in just 7th round! It was a pity he didnt achieve his GM norm.
Annirudh Deshpande of Maharashtra too played very solidly to score his maiden norm.
Akash PC Iyer who is a very intuitive and talented player also made his maiden norm.
L-R: Kiran Panditrao, Atul Dahale, Annirudh Deshpande, Sameer Kathmale, Sagar Shah(myself)
The very strong Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran gave a simul at the end of the tournament. He hadnt participated in the tournament but specially came to give a simul. This was a golden opportunity for young kids to get a glimpse of what abolute top level chess is like! Sasi who recently assisted Anand for his world championship match, played nearly 15 boards and no one was able to beat him. Though he was held to a draw on 3 boards.
In a scrapbook that I maintain, I ask top players what they think is the most important quality they think is required to become a world class player. What do you think Sasikiran must have written?: Well I think his answer will always remain the same. Its not a quality per se but a very important thing: Sasi says the best way to become a world class GM is to : ANALYSE YOUR OWN GAMES!!
You can find the full results of the tournament on this link:
http://chess-results.com/tnr117263.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=11&wi=821
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