PANAJI
Sindarov Zavokhir from Uzbekistan was crowned champion in Category A at Manohar Parrikar International Open Grandmaster online chess tournament.
The 15-year-old Grandmaster scored 12 points out of 15 rounds to claim the title in the top category (Above ELO 2000) of the series of five online tournaments in which 1717 players from 11 countries participated.
In the other categories, Lazzari Sergio of Argentina emerged champion in Category B (Below ELO 2000), Nawin M S of Tamil Nadu won Category C (Below ELO 1600), IM Taher Theolifus of Indonesia finished top in Category D (Bullet format) and Goa’s FM Nitish Belurkar was crowned champion in Category E (Chess 960 format). FM Nitish thus became the first Goan player to become a champion in a Grandmaster event.
Besides cash prizes of Rs 1,20,000, Goa Chess Association awarded medals with the image of late chief minister Manohar Parrikar engraved to the top three players in each category.
In Category A, IM Rathnavel V S from Chennai, who also scored 12 points was placed second while IM Harikrishna A Ra, also from Chennai, with 11.5 points was placed third.
Category A had 6 Indian Grandmasters, 6 foreign Grandmasters, 19 Indian International Masters, 4 foreign International Masters, 2 Women Grandmaster from India, 2 Women International Masters from India. National Rapid and Blitz Champion Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram Vr was the top seed with a FIDE Elo rating of 2641 followed by Grandmaster Aleksandrov Aleksej of Belarus and International Master Zubritskiy Artyom of Russia. Twenty-eight players had FIDE Elo rating of around 2400.
Category A witnessed 387 players from 11 federations -- Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Canada, Kazakhstan, Peru, Surinam and host nation, India.
Among the Goan players, Ritviz Parab finished highest with 9.5 points and was placed 34th in the main prize list. He was awarded the first place and gold medal in the Best Goan Category (Male). IM Ameya Audi, also with 9.5 points, was placed 36th and was awarded the second place and silver medal, while Devesh Naik was placed 40th, also with 9.5 points, and was awarded the third place and bronze medal in the category of Best Goan Category (Male).
IM Bhakti Kulkarni with 9.5 points was placed 42nd and was awarded the 1st place and gold medal in the Best Goan Category (Female) prize. Paarth Salvi and Vivaan Ballikar with 8.5 points each won the 4th and 5th place in Best Goan Category (Male) while in Best Goan Category (Female), Tanvi Hadkonkar with 7.5 points and Netra Savaikar with 7 points were awarded silver and bronze respectively. AIM Sayuri Naik with 7 points won bronze medal in Best Under-15, Girls Category while WCM Swera Braganca and Nidhi Gaude won the 4th and 5th place in the Best Goan Category (Female).
