Grandmasters M R Lalith Babu and Sergei Tiviakov scored final round victories to tie for first place with 9.5 points after the 11th round of the Apollo Engineering College Commonwealth Chess Championships 2012 at Multipurpose Indoor Stadium here on Saturday. Tiviakov was awarded a cash prize of Rs 1,50,000 along with the Commonwealth International Open title, while Lalith Babu was crowned the Commonwealth champion along with a trophy and a cash award of `1,25,000.
Tiviakov and Lalith Babu defeated S L Narayanan and P Karthikeyan respectively. Tiviakov edged Lalith on tie-break to finish first. With the Commonwealth Chess Championships being incorporated with the International Open, Tiviakov from The Netherlands, which is not a Commonwealth country, was declared the Open champion. Finishing behind gold medallist Lalith Babu were Chennai-based GMs M Shyam Sundar and SP Sethuraman, who were awarded the Commonwealth silver and bronze medals. The gold, silver and bronze medals in the women’s section went to Sowmya Swaminathan, Nisha Mohota and Mary Ann Gomes respectively. Chennai-based Ram S Krishnan of BSNL made it a double delight as he upset GM Mikhailo Oleksienko of Ukraine and added a GM Norm to his 9-game IM Norm. Giant-killer Narayanan made his second IM Norm. Final Placings: 1-2: Sergei Tiviakov (The Netherlands), M R Lalith Babu (India) 9.5, 3-4: M Shyam Sundar, SP Sethuraman (both India) 9, 5-10: P Karthikeyan, Ram S Krishnan, S L Narayanan, Akshayraj Kore, B Adhiban (all India), D Lintchevski (Russia) 8.5, 11-20: S A Prasad (India), M Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan), CRG Krishna (India), Alexander Fominyh (Russia), M R Venkatesh (India), R Nolte, Garcia Jan Emmanuel, Mark Paragua (all Philippines), J D Chakkravarthy, G Akash (both India) 8.
Round 11 Results (Indians unless specified): S Tiviakov (Ned) 9.5 bt S L Narayanan 8.5, M R Lalith Babu 9.5 bt P Karthikeyan 8.5, S P Sethuraman 9 bt Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) 8, M Shyam Sundar 9 bt Adly Ahmed (Egy) 7.5, H Sharma 7.5 lost to B Adhiban 8.5, D Lintchevski (Rus) 8.5 bt A Chithambaram 7.5, Ram S Krishnan 8.5 bt Oleksienko Mikhailo (Ukr) 7.5, M R Venkatesh 8 drew with G Akash 8, Akshayraj Kore 8.5 bt S Vijayalakshmi 7.5, R Sardana 8 drew with Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 8, Mark Paragua (Phi) 8 bt E Senador (Phi) 7.