A passed pawn did the trick as Lalit Babu beat Levan Pantsulaia with black and emerged the champion with eight points from nine rounds in the Aurionpro Grandmaster chess tournament at the World Trade Centre here on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old Lalit was tied with Mamikon Gharibyan, who also capitalised on a passed pawn to prevail in 95 moves against Neelotpal Das. The tie-breaker score put Lalit ahead.
The champion won Rs.4,00,000 and the runner-up Rs.3,00,000. Deepan Chakkravarthy finished fifth behind Duc Hoa Nguyen and Boris Savchenko, and collected Rs. 1.25 lakh.
In the under-13 section, Madhesh Kumar won the title outright with eight points, and pocketed Rs. 200,000. Advik Agrawal finished runner-up and won Rs. 1.5 lakh.
The results: Ninth round: Mamikon Gharibyan 8 bt Neelotpal Das 7; Levan Pantsulaia 6.5 lost to Lalit Babu 8; Van Huy Nguyen 7 drew with Manuel Petrosyan 7; Boris Savchenko 7.5 bt Aleksej Aleksandrov 6.5; Siddhanth Poonja 6.5 lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy 7.5; Duc Hoa Nguyen 7.5 bt David Gochelashvili 6.5; Arsen Davtyan 7 bt Shankhodip De 6; Alexei Fedorov 7 bt Rupesh Jaiswal 6; Viresh Sharnarthi 6 lost to Nayaka Budhidharma 7; Avirat Chauhan 7 bt Sherla Prathamesh 6; Luka Paichadze 6.5 bt Alluri Reddy 6; Hrishikesh Kumar 5.5 llost to Mihail Nikitenko 6.5.
Final placings: 1. Lalit Babu; 2. Mamikon Gharyban; 3. Duc Hoa Nguyen; 4. Boris Savchenko; 5. Deepan Chakkravarthy.
U-13: Advik Agrawal 7.5 bt Aansh Nerurkar 7; Madhesh Kumar 8 bt Vyom Malhotra 6.5; Madhvendra Sharma 7 bt Shaunak Badole 6.5 R Nijesh 6.5 drew with Aadik Lenin 6.5; Adhiraj Mitra 6.5 drew with Siddhant Salunke 6.5; Jagreet Misra 7 bt Anvita Sathi 6.
Final Placings: 1. Madhesh Kumar; 2. Advik Agrawal; 3. Aansh Nerurkar.
Published – June 24, 2025 06:39 pm IST