Pantsulaia emerges Chennai Open champion

: Georgia Grand Master Levan Pantsulaia logged 8.5 points to emerge the champion after the tenth and final round of the 11th Chennai Open International chess tournament here Friday.

In the final round, Pantsulaia drew with top seed GM Alexandr Predke of Russia to take his tally to 8.5 points. The draw propelled the Georgian to clear first. This follows Pantsulaia's title triumph at the Delhi Open last fortnight, giving him back-to-back titles.

The Georgian would take home a prize money of Rs three lakh along with the Sakthi Group Dr N Mahalingam Trophy.

Sharing the second spot with eight points were five GMs- Ivan Popov (Russia), Aleksej Aleksandrov (Belarus), Luka Paichadze (Georgia), Megaranto Susanto (Indonesia) and Ivan Rozum (Russia).

The top-seeds had their say in the final round, as all the decisive games in the top 10 boards went in favour of the higher rated player.

The country's first International Master Manuel Aaron gave away the prizes.

FIDE vice-president D V Sundar and Tamil Nadu State Chess Association general secretary Stephen Balasamy were present.

Final placings: 1. Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia) 8.5 pts, 2-6. Ivan Popov (Russia), Aleksej Aleksandrov (Belarus), Luka Paichadze (Georgia), Megaranto Susanto (Indonesia), Ivan Rozum (Russia) 8 pts, 7-10. Maxim Lugovskoy (Russia), Karthik Venkataraman (India), Alexandr Predke (Russia), Girish A Koushik (India) 7.5.

Important results: Round 10 (Indians unless specified): Levan Pantsulaia (Geo) 8.5 drew with Predke Alexandr (Rus) 7.5, Ivan Popov (Rus) 8 beat Maxim Lugovskoy (Rus) 7.5, Ivan Rozum Ivan (Rus) 8 beat Deviatkin Andrei (Rus) 7, Paichadze Luka (Geo) 8 beat Padmini Rout 7.Aleksandro Aleksej (Blr) 8 beat Nguyen Van Huy (Vie)7, Megaranto Susanto (Ina) 8 beat M Pranesh M 7, Vignesh N R 7.5 drew wih Karthik Venkataraman 7.5, Sahoo Utkal Ranjan (6.5) lost to Tran Tuan Minh (Vie) 7.5.