Chess
Indian Grandmaster S L Narayanan finishes second in chess tourney in Armenia
Indian GM S L Narayanan played a draw against Russian GM Aleksey Goganov in the final round to finish second in the ChessMood Open
GM SL Narayanan (Source: Pro Chess League)
Indian Grandmaster S L Narayanan played a draw against Russian GM Aleksey Goganov in the final round to finish second in the ChessMood Open chess tournament, which concluded at Tsaghkadzor near on Tuesday.
Goganov emerged a clear winner with 7.5 points while Narayanan logged seven points. The top-seeded Narayanan, who was on 6.5 points at the end of the eighth round, needed to beat Goganov in the final round to have a shot at winning the title.
Narayanan had defeated compatriot Arjun Erigaisi in the eighth round to keep his championship hopes but the draw in the final round put paid to his title hopes.
The 23-year old Indian GM won six games and drew two while going down to GM Samvel Ter-Sahakyan (Armenia) in the fourth round.
Young Indian GM R Praggnanandhaa took the sixth place with 6.5 points while two other compatriots Abhimanyu Puranik (6.5 points) and Karthik Venkataraman (6.5 points) finished eighth and tenth respectively.
Praggnanandhaa's sister R Vaishali, a woman Grandmaster, took the 16th spot with six points. Erigaisi (5.5) and D Gukesh, also with 5.5 points, ended 18th and 20th in the nine-round event.
In the final round, Praggnanandhaa drew against Masoud Mosadeghpour (Iran) while Vaishali and Gukesh played out a draw.
