International Master Sayantan Das defeated Vitaliy Bernadskiy of Ukraine to achieve Grandmaster norm in the tenth and final round of 14th Parsvnath Delhi International Chess Festival that concluded here today.
It was an intense drama in the final round of Rs 12.5 lakh prize money tournament as overnight sole leader Ivan Popov suffered a shock defeat at the hands of veteran Grandmaster Valeriy Neverov of Ukraine.
While it did not alter the final rankings, it ensured a thrilling day as Neverov defeated Popov in a class act with white pieces.
At the end, it was a three-way tie for the top spot on eight points each with Hungarian Grandmaster Attila Czebe who also reached the magical eight points.
As the tie was resolved, Popov still had the best tiebreak and the Russian walked away with the winner's cheque of Rs 3 lakh. Czebe came second and Neverov had to be content with a third place finish.
Among the Indians, M R Lalith Babu scored a fine victory in the last round over Yuri Solodovnichenko of Ukraine to tie for the fourth spot and finish sixth overall.
Also ending in this set on 7.5 points were Sayantan Das and Vaibhav Suri who finished seventh and ninth respectively.
The day, however, belonged to Sayantan who made a Grandmaster norm with a commendable show. Vitaliy Bernadskiy was outdone in the middle game where he lost a couple of pawns without much compensation and slowly but surely Sayantan converted his advantage.
Sayantan thus added a fifth norm to the tournament after R A Pradeep Kumar, Himal Gusain and Mehar Chinna Reddy made International Master norms while Srija Sheshadri got her Women International Master norm.
In category C that also concluded simultaneously, N Srihari emerged victories scoring a whopping 9.5 points out of a possible 10. Srihari won Rs 1.5 lakh for his efforts. Ashutosh Bannerjee finished second, Shanya Mishra was declared third while Manish Kumar Sharma finished fourth.
The event is set to get bigger next year as the prize fund has been increased to Rs 51 lakhs in the three categories combined.
