BHUBANESWAR: Ukraine Grandmaster Yuri Drozdovskij was the surprise winner of the 1st SCS International Open GM Chess Tournament which concluded here on Sunday. Drozdovskij not only beat compatriot GM Yaroslav Zinchenko in the final round but also overtook overnight sole leader Igor Kurnosov (Russia) and top seed Sergei Tiviakov (Netherlands) to script a memorable triumph.
In fact, four foreign GMs - Drozdovskij, Kurnosov, Andrey Rychagov (Russia) and Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukraine) - and India’s MS Thejkumar tied for the top spot with eight points each. But Drozdovskij was eventually declared champion as his Buccholz score (65) was greater than the other four (64.5, 63.5, 63 and 58.5). As there was no outright winner, Drozdovskij could not claim the top prize of Rs 2 lakh. Instead, the top five finishers were given Rs 96,000 each. India’s Thejkumar impressed by winning eight out of 10 games. In the last round, Thejkumar upset GM Abhijeet Gupta.
Results (Round 10): Top 25 boards: Igor Kurnosov (Rus, 8) drew with Georgy Timoshenko (Ukr, 7.5), B Adhiban (Ind, 7) lost to Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 8), Yuri Drozdovskij (Ukr, 8) bt Yaroslav Zinchenko (Ukr, 7), Abhijeet Gupta (Ind, 7) lost to MS Thejkumar (Ind, 8), Andrey Rychagov (Rus, 8) bt Roman Ovetchkin (Rus, 7), Evgeny Vorobiov (Rus, 7) drew with Anuar Ismagambetov (Kaz, 7.5), Alexander Zubarev (Ukr, 7) drew with Himanshu Sharma (Ind, 7), Enamul Hossain (Ban, 7.5) bt DV Prasad (Ind, 6.5), Neelotpal Das (Ind, 7) drew with Srinath Narayanan (Ind, 7), Saptarshi Roy (Ind, 6) lost to Rustam Khusnutdinov (Kaz, 7.5), Minhazuddin Ahmed (Ban, 7) drew with Serikbay Temirbayev (Kaz, 7), Tejas Bakre (Ind, 7.5) bt Nikil P Shyam (Ind, 6.5), Swapnil S Dhopade (Ind, 6.5) lost to SP Sethuraman (Ind, 7.5), MR Venkatesh (Ind, 6.5) lost to Rahul Sangma (Ind, 7.5), Ponnuswamy Konguvel (Ind, 7.5) bt Shreyansh Daklia Jain (Ind, 6.5), Sergei Tiviakov (Ned, 7) bt Mohammad Abdul Malek (Ban, 6.5), Sergey Vokarev (Rus, 7) bt P Mahreswaran (Ind, 6), RR Laxman (Ind, 6.5) drew with Atanu Lahri (Ind, 6.5), Meenakshi Subbaraman (Ind, 7) bt Amon Simutowe (Zam, 6), Anwesh Upadhyaya (Ori, 6.5) drew with Alexander Fominyh (Rus, 6.5), Bitan Banerjee (Ind, 7) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (Ind, 6), MR Lalith Babu (Ind, 6) lost to Anu p Deshmukh (Ind, 7), V Vishnu Prasanna (Ind, 6.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (Ind, 6.5), Deep Sengupta (Ind, 7) bt R Arun Karthik (Ind, 6), Sriram Jha (Ind, 7) bt GB Joshi (Ind, 6). Final standings (Top 10): 1. Yuri Drozdovskij (Urk, 8), 2. Irog Kurnosov (Rus, 8), 3. And rey Rychagov (Ukr, 8), 4. Yuriy Kuzubov (Uk r, 8), 5. MS Thejkumar (Ind, 8), 6. Enamul Hossain (Ban, 7.5), 7.
Georgy Timoshenko (Ukr, 7.5), 8. SP Sethuraman (Ind, 7.5), 9. Ponnuswamy Konguvel (Ind, 7.5), 10. Rahul Sangama , 7.5).