IM Muthaiah wins HatsunIdhayam 5th FIDE Rated Chess Tournament 2019
The 5th edition of the Hatsun Idhayam FIDE rated chess tournament was organised by VIrudhunagar Chess Club at V.S.V.N. Polytechnic College, Virudhunagar from 5th to 8th October 2019. Three hundred eighteen players from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, AP, Maharashtra, Delhi and Pondicherry participated in the four day – eight round tournament. International master A Ra Harikrishna of Chennai was the top seed followed by IM Muthaiah AL of Tamil Nadu and IM Chakravarthy Reddy of Telangana.
Surprisingly, all the seeded players had a smooth sailing until the fourth round. In the fifth round, SS Manigandan of Madurai held international master AL Muthaiah to a draw and Sa Kannan of Karaikudi forced his city mate and IM norm holder M Pranesh to a draw. Four players, IM Harikrishnan, IM Chakravarthy Reddy, Senthil Maran of TN and Sharsha Backer of Kerala were leading with full five points at the end of the fifth round. The top board games between the four leaders ended without any decisive result. Pranesh Bharath Kalyan and Selvamurugan of Tamil Nadu registered victories to join the four leaders with 5.5 points each, after six rounds. Among the sixth round leaders, only the first and third seeds Harikrishnan and Chakravarthy recorded wins to set up a clash between them in the final round with 6.5 points each. Eight players including second seeded Muthaiah trailed behind with six points each. While Hari and Charavarthy drew their encounter, Muthaiah, P. Maheswaran of Postal Services, M Pranesh and Sa Kannan won their respective games creating a six way tie for the first place. Muthaiah and Chakravarthy remained identical in all the five tie breaks to tie for the first and second rank. They shared the prize money and the champion of the tournament was decided by an Armageddon play off. Muthaiah, playing with black pieces defeated Chakravarthy to be declared as the champion. Sa Kannan, Pranesh, Harikrishnan and Maheswaran finished third to seventh in that order.
Sri. V.V.R. Muthu, Managing Director Idhayam Group of Industries inaugurated the tournament. On the final day, Sri. A. Gopalsamy, President Virudhunagar District Chess Association presided over the function ceremony and Sri. V.V.R. Muthu was the chief guest. Sri. V.M.G. Rajasekaran President of Virudhunagar Chess Club, Sri. VPPKC Narayanamoorthy, Secretary V.S.V.N. Polytechnic College, Sri. R. Mariappan, Secretary, Virudhunagar Chess Club and TKSP Sankara Pandian were the guests of honour.
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