Gupta wins Agzamov Memorial

Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta dished out an emphatic show to win the Agzamov memorial International open chess tournament in Tashkent on Friday.

The Indian came up with an inspired performance in the last round to beat Russian Grandmaster Oleg Korneev and ended up with 7.5 points out of a possible nine for a clear first place.

It was a four way tie for the second spot on seven points apiece. Kuzubov finished second, Mchedlishvili third while Pavel Smirnov of Russia and Arman Pashikian of Armenia had to be content with fourth and fifth place respectively.

Starting as the seventh seed in the strong line-up that boasted of 10 players above the 2600 ELO rating mark, Gupta started with a walkover and then scored two victories in the tournament before settling for draws with Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine and Uzbekistan’s Anton Filippov.

The big success for the Indian came in round seven when he defeated top seed Sergei Zhigalko of Belarus and after a draw with Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia in the penultimate round, Gupta was at his best to outwit Korneev with black pieces in the final round.

Apart from the winner’s cheque of $4000, Gupta also added important rating points to his kitty.

It was a French defence by Gupta that met with an early surprise in form of Advance variation by Korneev who was taken aback by Gupta’s choice of opening.

It was clear from the first few moves itself that the Russian, who started the day a half point less, wanted to win but Gupta gave no chances whatsoever in the opening.

Sacrificing a pawn early, Gupta seized the initiative in the middle game with some fine manoeuvres and spurned down a draw offer in the middle game to keep pushing for more.

With his clock ticking away, Korneev had his back to the wall and it was a picturesque finish when Gupta caught the white king in a checkmate web after 44 moves.

“This tournament went pretty well as I remained unbeaten and scored two victories against higher ranked players, my best game was against Zhigalko in which I had to fight very hard to get a full point,” said Gupta.

This was Gupta’s second major title this year after the Parsvnath International Open Chess tournament in New Delhi early in January. Gupta had also finished fourth in the prestigious Dubai open in April this year.

Important Results Final Round: Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 7) drew with Pavel Smirnov (Rus, 7); Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo, 7) drew with Arman Pashikian (Arm, 7); Oleg Korneev (Rus, 6) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (7.5); Robert Hovhannisyan (Arm, 6.5) drew with Andrey Zhigalko (Blr, 6.5); Sergei Zhigalko (Blr, 6.5) beat Bakhodir Kholmirzaev (Uzb, 5.5); Sergey Volkov (Rus, 6.5) beat Vladimir Egin (Uzb, 5.5); Rustam Khusnutdinov (Kaz, 6.5) beat Ismael Namir Mohammed (Uzb, 5.5).

Source: http://www.thehindu.com