Chess
Indian GM Gukesh wins Menorca Open chess tournament
The 15-year old GM scored six points from seven rounds to clinch first place and earned 1,600 Euros as prize money
D Gukesh is currently the joint-topper on the Candidates 2024 ladder board at the end of the eighth round.
Teenaged Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh on Sunday won the Menorca Open chess tournament, his second title win in as many weeks.
Indian players dominated, taking seven spots in the top 10 with Aryan Chopra finishing runner-up. The 15-year old GM scored six points from seven rounds to clinch first place and earned 1,600 Euros as prize money. Gukesh defeated fellow Indian B Adhiban in the seventh and final round to cap an impressive performance during which he remained undefeated.
Gukesh also gained 13.4 ELO points and climbed into the top 80 of the world rankings. India's Aryan Chopra finished second with 5.5 points while Armenia's Shant Sargsyan took the third place. Haik M Matrirosyan (Armenina) bagged the fourth spot with the same number of points but due to an inferior tie-break score.
Experienced Indian GM S P Sethuraman took the fifth place, with 5.5 points. Countrymen Raunak Sadhwani, Nihal Sarin, the fast-rising Arjun Erigaisi and Adhiban finished seventh to 10th respectively. Gukesh finished with five wins and two draws - against Chopra and Sargysan. The victories were against Andeas Heinman, Nino Batsiashvili, Andrej Dubkov, Ad Rodriguez Redondo apart from Adhiban.
"Love Spain...kind to me. 2nd Title in a row and my 3rd open title in Spain overall in addition to my World under 12 title again here in 2018!," the Chennai-based GM tweeted after the win. Gukesh had last Sunday won the 48th Open Ajedrez La Roda chess tournament held in La Roda, Spain.
