Parimarjan loses final round; Itturizaga wins title

Grandmaster Eduardo Itturizaga of Venezuela played out a quick draw with Viorel Iordachescu of Venezuela on the top board to win the title on his best tiebreak score based on the average ratings of his opponents.

It was an eight-way tie at the top as all the games amongst six pointers had a decisive result. Apart from Itturizaga and Iordachscu, Georgian duo of Tornike Sanikidze and David Arutinian, Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan, Sergey Volkov of Russia, Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus and Hrant Melkumyan of Armenia tied for the top spot tallying an impressive 7 points apiece.

Amongst the Indians in the fray, R R Lazman, Abhijeet Gupta, M Shyam Sundar, S Arun Prasad and Ramnesh Bhuvanesh scored 6 points each and got in to the prize list while Negi, International Master Sahaj Grover, M R Lalith Babu, D Harika, and S Satyapragyan ended with a tally of 5.5 points apiece.

Negi obviously wanted to win the final round against Manuel but the latter played simply too safe with his white pieces to give any chances to the young Indian. Playing the black side of a Sicilian Dragon, Negi was given the opportunity to simply equalise and get a drawn endgame out of the opening which he refused and the further solid play by white only left the things dull on the chequered board.

Negi missed a trick in the middle game and had to pay heavy dividends as Manuel won a pawn and increased his advantage in to a full point. Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta found his winning touch against Kazakh GM Nurlam Ibraev and won a fine game with black pieces to end his campaign on a positive note. It was Gupta's pet Grunfeld that gave him an easy position to play in the middle game and following an error filled plan by Ibraev in the later part of the game the Indian won a pawn and never let his opponent recovered.

Important and Indian results final round (Indians unless stated): Viorel Iordachescu (Mda, 7) drew with Eduardo Iturrizaga (Ven, 7); Vladimir Baklan (Ukr, 6.5) drew with Tornike Sanikidze (Geo, 7); Ramnath Bhuvanesh (6) lost to Sergey Volkov (7); Gadir Guseinov (Aze, 7) beat Merab Gagunashvili (Geo, 6); Eltaj Safarli (Aze, 6) lost to Hrant Melkumyan (Arm, 7); Ghaem Maghami Ehsan (Iri, 6) lost to Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr, 7); Levan Pantsulaia (Geo, 6) lost to David Arutinian (Geo, 7); Lopez Martinez Josep Manuel (Esp, 6.5); beat Parimarjan Negi (5.5); Nurlan Ibrayev (Kaz, 5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (6); S Arun Prasad (6) beat Ghane Shojaat (5); M Shyam Sundar (6) beat Rasul Ibrahimov (Aze, 5); Mammadov Zaur Fazahir Oglu (Aze, 5.5) drew with M R Lalith Babu (5.5); R R Laxman (6) beat Solomon Kenny (Rsa, 5); S Meenakshi (5) lost to Salem A R Saleh (Uae, 5); D Harika (5.5) beat Hrabinska Myroslava (Ukr, 4.5); S Satyapragyan (5.5) beat Zeinab Mamedjarova (Aze, 4.5); Wageih Kareim (Egy, 5.5) beat M R Venkatesh (4.5); Sahaj Grover (5.5) beat El Arousy Abdul Hameed (Egy, 4.5); Eesha Karavade (5) drew with Abhishek Kelkar (5); Tejas Ravichandran (5.5) beat Khader Sami (Jor, 4); Padmini Rout (4) lost to Afshari Mohammadreza (Iri, 5); Kowsarinia Amir (Iri, 4) lost to Shiven Khosla (5); Chinmay Kulkarni (5) beat John Bennett (Eng, 4); Mohannad Farhan (Jor, 4) lost to Karma Pandya (5); Vinod Bhagwat (5) beat Omar Noaman (Uae, 4); Rafee Mohd Hayel (Syr, 3.5) lost to Antonio Viani D'cunha (4.5); Tawfeik Moustafa (Egy, 4.5) beat P I Johny (3.5); K Sudharsan Surya (4.5) beat Mahmoud Haitham (Sud, 3.5); M Vigram (4) beat Khechen Nabil (lib, 3); Manjunath Jain (3) drew with N Madhuri (3); M Priadarshni (2.5) beat Majed Ali Abdouli (Uae, 1.5)