Gritty Surya scripts biggest win of his career

Ignoring infection and fighting super ratings and rankings, the 36-year-old Surya Sekhar Ganguly carved the biggest win of his career and claimed the highest ever prize money in the history of Indian chess in an Open event with a win in the Super Strong Belt and Road Hunan International Open Chess Championship in China on Wednesday.

Ganguly pocketed 50,000 USD from a field, which boasted of six Grandmasters (GM) enjoying 2700 plus rating. Ganguly with an Elo 2638 rating was ranked 15th in the event which had 42 GMs and 20 IMs in the fray.

Ganguly had bagged an individual gold in the World Team Championship earlier this year. In Hunan, he tallied a fantastic 7/9 score to clock a phenomenal rating performance of Elo 2876 which is almost 250 points more than his current rating. Yu (2736) of China secured second place with 6.5/9.

“It indeed is a special moment for me, all the more so since I was sick throughout the whole tournament. I want to thank my wife Sudeshna for coming to China and taking good care of me and keeping my spirits high” an emotional Ganguly told DH on Wednesday.

The Indian took sole charge in the seventh round by defeating the then leader Ivan Cheparinov in what he termed as his best game of the tournament. Earlier in the 6th game, Ganguly had fought hard for 75 moves in an inferior position to salvage a draw against Amin Bassem (2707).

The 8th round against top seed Wang Hao was a battle of nerves and skill as Hao trailing just half appoint behind Ganguly was pressing hard for victory. Ganguly, who has assisted World Champion Viswanathan Anand in four World Championship title matches, held on to his nerves to end on the winning side and eked out a draw in the final round against Vallejo Pons.

Ganguly said: “cold, cough and a blocked nose throughout the tournament had me coughing a lot during the games and I must thank my gentle opponents for tolerating me at the board”.

India was represented by six players in Adhiban, Sethuraman, S L Narayanan, Harshit Raja and Himal Gusain.