IM Saravana Krishnan and Md Reyan win the Marvel Chess Academy, Hyderabad twin tournaments
The players’ hunger for the Over The Board tournament after a gap of 20 months was evident from the massive turn-out for the 3rd Hyderabad Open and 4th Hyderabad Below 1600 FIDE Rated Chess Tournaments, organised by Marvel Chess Academy from 6th to 10th and from 11th to 13th November 2021 respectively. Fifth seeded international master Saravana Krishnan P of Karur Vysya Bank Tamil Nadu won the open tournament, scoring 8.5 points, conceding only one draw to IM Himal Gusain of Chandigarh. Check out a beautifully annotated game shared by the winner, IM P Saravana Krishnan. Photo: R Anantharam
Saravana and Reyan become unbeaten champions 8.5/9
Both IM Saravana Krishnan and Md Reyan scored an identical 8.5/9 each to win in Open and Below 1600 category respectively. While Saravana made a double hat-trick before scoring a draw, Ten-year-old Reyan scored eight consecutive victories before drawing his final round game as it was enough for him to secure the first position.
Ten-year-old Md Reyan of Bihar created history by winning with the Below 1600 tournament, with consummate ease.
Three players IM Ratnakaran of Southern Railways, Dhananjay of Chhattisgarh and ICF GM RR Laxman tied for the second to fourth place and finished in that order, based on their tiebreak scores.
Two consecutive draws in the fifth and sixth round against very low-rated players had a telling effect on the Buchholz score of RR Laxman, pushing him to fourth place.
Laxman was held to a draw by Tamil Nadu youngster Arnav Maheshwari, which was a setback for him in the fifth round. A similar situation to the other Railways player Ratnakaran, against Arpan Das of West Bengal, in the sixth round. It resulted in Saravana Krishnan, Himal Gusain and Kaustuv Kundu (not the IM) of West Bengal to score six wins in six rounds. As Saravana and Himal drew against each other, Kaustuv emerged the sole leader by beating CM Kushagra Mohan of Telangana. Saravana took Kaustuv on stride in the eighth round, but Himal lost unexpectedly to Utsab Chatterjee of WB, paving way to Saravana’s success.
An interesting game of Saravana, annotated by himself
The runner-up K Ratnakaran accepted the draw against Arnav Maheshwari of TN in a slightly better position.
A total of 550 players including a GM and three IMs participated from various states across the country, between 6th to 10th November 2021.
Final Standings
Rk. | SNo | Name | Typ | sex | FED | Rtg | Club/City | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 | Rp | w-we | |
1 | 5 | IM | Saravana Krishnan P. | IND | 2312 | K V B | 8,5 | 52,5 | 57,0 | 54,00 | 0,0 | 8 | 2228 | 1,40 | ||
2 | 4 | IM | Ratnakaran K. | IND | 2314 | S Railways | 8,0 | 53,0 | 57,5 | 49,75 | 0,0 | 7 | 2042 | 0,22 | ||
3 | 9 | Dhananjay S | IND | 2152 | CT | 8,0 | 52,0 | 56,0 | 49,00 | 0,0 | 8 | 2043 | 1,09 | |||
4 | 1 | GM | Laxman R.R. | IND | 2430 | ICF | 8,0 | 50,5 | 55,0 | 46,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 2021 | -0,20 | ||
5 | 11 | Arpan Das | IND | 2131 | WB | 7,5 | 52,5 | 57,5 | 45,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1963 | 1,21 | |||
6 | 3 | CM | Kushagra Mohan | IND | 2351 | TG | 7,5 | 50,5 | 54,5 | 44,25 | 0,0 | 7 | 1899 | -0,42 | ||
7 | 7 | Utsab Chatterjee | IND | 2239 | WES | 7,5 | 49,5 | 53,5 | 43,25 | 0,0 | 7 | 1954 | 0,39 | |||
8 | 23 | AFM | Pawar Harshit | U15 | IND | 1909 | DEL | 7,5 | 47,5 | 51,5 | 42,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1817 | 0,29 | |
9 | 13 | Sri Sai Baswanth P | IND | 2057 | AP | 7,5 | 47,0 | 51,0 | 42,50 | 0,0 | 6 | 1793 | -0,02 | |||
10 | 22 | Dhanush Ragav N S | IND | 1916 | TN | 7,5 | 47,0 | 50,5 | 40,50 | 0,0 | 7 | 1724 | -0,53 | |||
11 | 2 | IM | Gusain Himal | IND | 2414 | CH | 7,0 | 56,0 | 61,0 | 46,00 | 0,0 | 6 | 2022 | -0,68 | ||
12 | 28 | Arnav Maheshwari | U15 | IND | 1863 | TN | 7,0 | 54,5 | 58,5 | 42,00 | 0,0 | 6 | 1934 | 1,42 | ||
13 | 6 | Kaustuv Kundu | IND | 2311 | WB | 7,0 | 52,5 | 56,5 | 40,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1967 | -0,17 | |||
14 | 10 | Srihari L | IND | 2142 | PY | 7,0 | 51,0 | 55,0 | 41,75 | 0,0 | 6 | 1792 | -0,44 | |||
15 | 80 | ACM | Iyer Arvind | U13 | IND | 1558 | MAH | 7,0 | 50,5 | 54,5 | 37,25 | 0,0 | 5 | 1755 | 2,29 | |
16 | 8 | CM | Niraj Saripalli | IND | 2188 | GA | 7,0 | 50,0 | 54,0 | 39,50 | 0,0 | 6 | 1722 | -0,93 | ||
17 | 65 | Chidvilash Sai Surapaneni | U13 | IND | 1631 | TG | 7,0 | 49,5 | 52,5 | 36,50 | 0,0 | 7 | 1798 | 1,89 | ||
18 | 75 | Hriday Panchal | U15 | IND | 1571 | DEL | 7,0 | 48,5 | 51,5 | 36,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1671 | 1,74 | ||
19 | 26 | Mahendra Teja Mekala | U15 | IND | 1892 | AP | 7,0 | 48,0 | 51,0 | 37,00 | 0,0 | 6 | 1670 | -0,42 | ||
20 | 60 | Devansh Singh | IND | 1644 | MP | 7,0 | 47,5 | 51,0 | 38,25 | 0,0 | 6 | 1706 | 1,07 |
In the Below 1600 category, the ten-year-old boy Md Reyan of Bihar scored eight consecutive wins and settled for a draw in the final round to create an astonishing record. His stint with the trainer from Ukraine has paid rich dividends. The 2011 born boy has gained 170 rating points from this tournament.
Hriday Panchal kept pace with Reyan until the sixth round and had to suffer defeat against the champion in the seventh round, but managed to climb up to score eight points.
Vishwanath Kannam of Telangana and S Haridev of Tamil Nadu also scored eight points but the former secured the third spot.
The venue was Joy International School, Miyapur, Hyderabad, the management of which helped the organisers Rajashekar Bhagavatula and Ms. Kranti Lakshmi in a big way.
A total of 700 players took part from various states - Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Haryanan, Odisha, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, along with Canada and Germany from 11th to 13th November 2021.
Final Standings
Rk. | SNo | Name | Typ | sex | FED | Rtg | Club/City | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 | Rp | n | w | we | w-we | |
1 | 104 | Reyan Md. | U11 | IND | 1333 | BIH | 8,5 | 53,5 | 56,5 | 53,25 | 0,0 | 8 | 1810 | 7 | 6,5 | 2,25 | 4,25 | ||
2 | 4 | Hriday Panchal | U15 | IND | 1571 | DEL | 8,0 | 54,0 | 58,0 | 50,00 | 0,0 | 8 | 1651 | 9 | 8 | 7,22 | 0,78 | ||
3 | 15 | Vishwanath Kannam | IND | 1540 | TG | 8,0 | 52,5 | 57,0 | 48,50 | 0,0 | 8 | 1613 | 8 | 7 | 6,39 | 0,61 | |||
4 | 76 | Haridev S | U11 | IND | 1381 | TN | 8,0 | 49,0 | 52,0 | 44,50 | 0,0 | 8 | 1578 | 8 | 7 | 5,13 | 1,87 | ||
5 | 136 | Adharsh K | U11 | IND | 1277 | 7,5 | 52,0 | 56,0 | 44,50 | 0,0 | 7 | 1669 | 8 | 6,5 | 2,32 | 4,18 | |||
6 | 11 | ACM | Iyer Arvind | U13 | IND | 1558 | 7,5 | 51,5 | 55,5 | 45,25 | 0,0 | 6 | 1567 | 8 | 6,5 | 6,19 | 0,31 | ||
7 | 52 | Chandra Prakash Sankar | IND | 1448 | TN | 7,5 | 51,0 | 53,5 | 42,75 | 0,0 | 7 | 1464 | 7 | 5,5 | 5,20 | 0,30 | |||
8 | 80 | Dhiraj Patil | IND | 1371 | 7,5 | 50,0 | 54,5 | 42,75 | 0,0 | 7 | 1595 | 8 | 6,5 | 3,95 | 2,55 | ||||
9 | 8 | Shirodkar Aayush | IND | 1563 | GOA | 7,5 | 49,0 | 51,5 | 38,25 | 0,0 | 7 | 1569 | 8 | 6,5 | 6,26 | 0,24 | |||
10 | 20 | Narayan Iyengar | IND | 1515 | KAR | 7,5 | 47,5 | 50,5 | 39,75 | 0,0 | 7 | 1542 | 8 | 6,5 | 6,11 | 0,39 | |||
11 | 12 | Gopinath P | IND | 1546 | 7,5 | 46,0 | 49,5 | 40,75 | 0,0 | 7 | 1539 | 8 | 6,5 | 6,37 | 0,13 | ||||
12 | 44 | Vamsi Krishna R | IND | 1469 | 7,5 | 46,0 | 48,5 | 36,25 | 0,0 | 6 | 1466 | 8 | 6,5 | 6,45 | 0,05 | ||||
13 | 121 | Surendiraa A Sathish | IND | 1298 | TN | 7,5 | 44,5 | 48,5 | 42,50 | 0,0 | 7 | 1449 | 5 | 5 | 2,35 | 2,65 | |||
14 | 69 | Dhruva Thota | U13 | IND | 1403 | 7,5 | 43,0 | 47,5 | 40,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1395 | 8 | 6,5 | 6,39 | 0,11 | |||
15 | 196 | Sidharth Sreekumar | U11 | IND | 1193 | KL | 7,0 | 50,0 | 53,5 | 40,75 | 0,0 | 6 | 1572 | 7 | 5 | 1,30 | 3,70 | ||
16 | 109 | Patil Divya | F13 | w | IND | 1325 | MH | 7,0 | 49,0 | 53,0 | 37,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1460 | 5 | 3 | 1,80 | 1,20 | |
17 | 108 | Gowtham B | U15 | IND | 1326 | 7,0 | 49,0 | 52,5 | 35,75 | 0,0 | 6 | 1439 | 7 | 5,5 | 3,85 | 1,65 | |||
18 | 95 | Saravanan | U15 | IND | 1339 | TN | 7,0 | 48,5 | 53,0 | 39,50 | 0,0 | 7 | 1381 | 7 | 5 | 4,59 | 0,41 | ||
19 | 329 | Madhvendra Pratap Sharma | U09 | IND | 1043 | MP | 7,0 | 48,5 | 52,0 | 38,00 | 0,0 | 7 | 1466 | 7 | 5 | 1,22 | 3,78 | ||
20 | 10 | Samyak Dharewa | U13 | IND | 1561 | WB | 7,0 | 48,0 | 52,5 | 41,25 | 0,0 | 5 | 1408 | 7 | 5,5 | 5,98 | -0,48 |
About the Author
Prof. Rathinam Anantharam is an A-grade international arbiter. Member of FIDE Arbiters’ Commission, Chairman of Titles Commission in All India Chess Federation, Vice President of Tamil Nadu State Chess Association, Chief Arbiter for six world championships, many Asian, International and National Championships.
The article was edited by Shahid Ahmed