3rd Shaastra Rated Rapid Chess Tournament

• February 25, 2019
• in Chess, Chess Spotlights, Flash News, Tournament News

3^rd Shaastra Rated Rapid Chess Tournament

The increasing number of participants and especially the number of the title holders is a measure of the growing popularity of the 3^rd Shaastra Rated Rapid Chess Tournament, organised by the Shaastra, IIT Madras at the IIT campus on 23^rd and 24^th February 2019. Two grandmasters from ICF, former Asian Junior champion Deepan Chakkravarthy and former national rapid champion R R Laxman, ten international masters, one WGM and two WIMs contributed to the strength of the tournament. Deepan who has a rapid rating of 2524 was followed by R R Laxman (2455), former national champion IM G Akash (2411) and the Railways star K Rathnakaran of Kerala in the seeding list. In total, for hundred and forty players took part in the ten round Swiss system with a time control of 20 minutes to each player with an increment of five seconds per move.

Results were on expected lines for the first fifty six boards of the first round. In the second round also, the organiser Shivam Chandak seeded 34^th lost to Jayakrishna H, rated 700 below him. Third round witnessed the split of the point by seventh seeded B Vignesh of Tamil Nadu with Ayushh Ravikumar of the same state. Forty eight players were leading with three points each at the end of the third round. N. Surendran of Viyugam Chess Academy caused him biggest upset of the tournament, by beating the top seed Deepan Chakkravarthy in the fourth round. An equal upset was the defeat of the fourth seeded IM K Rathnakaran at the hands of M. Siddharth of Tamil Nadu rated 1983. All the Blacks on the top eight tables (including RR Laxman and G Akash) registered wins in the fifth round and one more joint leader was Syed AnvarShazuli with five points.

Four players – international masters Akash and AL Muthaiah, youngsters M Siddharth and M Pranesh had scored six points in sixrounds. Two more players K Mahesh Kumar of AP and IM VAV Rajesh joined the quartet in the seventh round with 6.5 points each, as the top two board games were drawn. Both Mahesh and Pranesh continued their good run to outwit the two international masters Akash and Rajesh and AL Muthaiah also posted a win to make it a three way tie at the top after eight rounds. Pranesh was in a punishing mood and gave no respect to the GM title by beating the top seed Deepan Chakkravarthy. Muthaiah also did not lag behind to beat Mahesh Kumar to share the lead with Pranesh at the end of the penultimate round.

In the final round, Muthaiah defeated VAV Rajesh to secure 9.5 points but the winning spree of Pranesh was halted by Laxman. This enabled Muthaiah to add one more trophy to his many collections this year and Pranesh had to be content with the runner up position with nine points. K Senthil Maran, Laxman and V Pranav scored 8.5 points each and were placed in that order from 3^rd to 5^th. Nine players scored eight points and SS Manigandan of Madurai topped them at the sixth place.

Prof. Shaikh Faruque Ali, Adviser, Co-Curricular Affairs, IIT Madras made the formal inaugural move on day 1. And also distributed the prizes in the presence of Mr. K. Ganesan, Secretary, Chennai District Chess Association and Mr. Vamsi, Student Secretary Shaastra IIT.

Lto R: Nitin Pai, M Pranesh – runner up, Shaikh Faruque Coordinator, Cocurricular Activities IIT, R. Anantharam IA, R Ravikumar IA, RR Vasudevan IA, Vamsi Student Secretary Shaastra and K Ganesan Secretary Chennai D

Final standing (top ten)