PETROSIAN ANNEXES TITLE
Kolkata Newsline, India
March 7 2007
Top seed Serjei Tiviakov beats Darmen Sadvakasov to second place
with a better tie-break, national champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly
finishes seventh
Express News Service
Kolkata, March 6: Armenian GM Tigran Petrosian will fly back home
richer by $ 4,500 having won the Kolkata Open at the Alekhine Chess
Club today.
He took a lightning 8-move draw against GM Dimitri Komarov of Ukraine
on the top board, to assure himself of a joint first place finish.
But the 22-year-old Armenian later emerged the sole winner after GM
Darmen Sadvakasov of Kazakhstan drew his match against Israeli GM
Alon Greenfeld.
"I liked the tournament very much. It was a very strong field and the
facilities extended to me were comparable to anywhere in the world. I
hope to be back in the next edition," Petrosian said after clinching
the title.
On the second board, Sadvakasov tried to break down the defences
of his opponent from the black side of a Reti opening. He however,
had to give up the struggle and take the peace offering on the 38th
move in a sterile position.
Top seed GM Serjei Tiviakov of The Netherlands defeated GM Abhijit
Kunte in a fine positional game to tie for the second position with
Sadvakasov. Kunte tried the solid Berlin defence against the Ruy lopez
opening of his Dutch opponent, but he missed a tactic and his kingside
pawn structure was shattered. Thereafter the top seed continued to
pick up the weak pawns to force the resignation of the Indian GM on
the 61st move.
The victory enabled Tiviakov to take the second spot ahead of
Sadvakasov because of a better tie-break. The ties were resolved on
the basis of the average ratings of the opponents of a player.
Sadvakasov had to be content with the third place.
National champion GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly won a long game against GM
Mikheil Kekilidze of Georgia to finish seventh.
Results: GM Dimitri Komarov (7) drew with GM Tigran Petrosian (8),
GM Alon Greenfeld (6.5) drew with GM Darmen Sadvakasov (7.5), GM
Serjei Tiviakov (7.5) beat GM Abhijit Kunte (6), GM Surya Sekhar
Ganguly (7) beat GM Mikheil Kekelidze (6), GM Saidali Iuldachev
(7) beat IM Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman (6), IM Sundarajan Kidambi
(6) lost to IM Sriram Jha (7), G N Gopal (7) beat GM Safin Sukhrat
(6), IM Arun Prasad (6) drew with GM Ziaur Rahman (6), IM D P Singh
(6) drew with GM R B Ramesh (6), Vikramaditya Kamble (5.5) lost to
GM Deepan Chakravarthy (6.5), GM Olivier Renet (5) lost to IM P D S
Girinath (6.5), GM Serjey Kasparov (5.5) drew with K Rathnakaran (5.5),
S P Sethuraman (6) got a walkover against IM Abdulla Al-Rakib (5).