11th Mumbai Mayor’s International Chess Tournament 2018

Tajikistan’s Farrukh lifts the 11th Mumbai Mayor’s Cup
[From Left to Right]  GM Amonatov Farrukh , A Category Winner, Vithhal Madhav, Secretary,
Mumbai Suburban District Chess Federation, Ravindra Dongre,
Organising Secretary, Bharatsingh Chauhan, Secretary, All India Chess Federation,
V Anantharaman , Chief Arbiter and Nagesh G (in white), Treasurer, Mumbai City Chess Association
at the Prize distribution ceremony of the  11th Mumbai Mayor’s International Chess Tournament 2018,
Sponsored by LIC and hosted by Mount Litera International School, Bandra Kurla Complex on Sunday.

GM Amonatov Farrukh of Tajikistan won the 11th Mumbai Mayors Cup 2018 category "A" title with a superior tie-break ahead of GM Pruijssers Roeland (Netherlands).

The 11th Mumbai Mayor’s International Chess Tournament 2018, sponsored by LIC and hosted by Mount Litera International School, Bandra Kurla Complex carried a total prize of Rs 35 Lakhs for its Category A, B & C events held in parallel. The 10-round Category-A Swiss event had 216 participants with 73 titled players including 21 Grandmasters. The category-C(for those below 1600 FIDE Rating) & Category-B (below 2000 FIDE Rating) events attracted 558 & 369 participants respectively. The 8-day event was organized by Venus Chess Academy under the aegis of the All India Chess Federation

GM Farrukh who was the last year runner-up and the third seed this year, drew with GM Pruijssers Roeland to score 8 points. He was undefeated with 6 wins and 4 draws.

Sharing the title with Amonatov was the Dutchman Pruijssers, who began with a defeat by the hands of WIM Rucha Puchari, but made it up with seven wins in the next nine rounds.
 

GM Pruijssers accepts the prize for second place

Amonatov went home with a handsome cash prize of Rs 3.3 Lakhs, while the Grandmaster from the Netherlands received Rs 2.3 Lakhs for his efforts.

On the third spot with 7.5 points were Manik Mikulas (Svk), Kravtsiv Martyn (Ukr), Tran Tuan Minh (Vie), Karthik Venkataraman (Ind), Neverov Valeriy (Ukr), Ghosh Diptayan (Ind), Tukhaev Adam (Ukr) and Deepan Chakkravarthy (Ind).

India’s IM Karthik Venkatraman (6th), GM Ghosh Diptayan (8th) and GM Deepan Chakravarthy J (10th) all finished with 7.5 points each to make it to the top 10 and received cash prizes of Rs 50,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively.

The game between Farrukh and Roeland started with the traditional Scotch opening. With both players exchanging pieces at regular intervals the game was equally poised. After a continuous exchange of pieces both the players were left with rook and bishop at either side. With no scope of a clear victory both the players agreed for a draw after 25 moves with Farrukh emerging as the winner on the virtue of a better tie-break score.

Divya Deshmukh made her final WIM Norm, accounting for International Master P Karthikeyan and GM Norm holder Navalgund Niranjan.

Penultimate-day encounters: 
IM Visakh (ELO 2467) and GM Manik Mikulas (ELO 2399) started with Tromposky opening. Both the games were equally poised with each of them playing safe. With both the players exhausting all their moves they decided to draw the match after 57 moves.

In another key game, the top seed GM Kravtsiv Martyn (ELO 2662) and GM Pruijssers Roeland (ELO 2514) started with French defence which converted into an irregular opening. In the middle game, Roeland sacrificed his queen for 2 rooks and gained a pawn along with that. He then attacked the king and got back his queen in exchange for his Rook and Bishop. In the endgame with an extra pawn and the knight on the other side, Martyn could not defend his position and accepted his defeat in 84 moves.

Complete placings & round by round results at
http://chess-results.com/tnr358836.aspx?lan=1&art=0&turdet=YES&flag=30