Sankalp emerges best city player
    Date :11-Jul-2020

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Sports Reporter ;
 
SANKALP Gupta ended the Letsup Grand Prix Blitz International Online Chess Tournament as city’s best player securing 16th place in the fifth and final round of the event organised by Maharashtra Chess Association (MCA). Sankalp ended the event with 6.5 points from ten matches of three minutes each played back to back. He started slowly with a couple of draws and then hit form to win two matches in a row. He ended the fifth round with five wins and three draws. The two losses hit him hard and cost him a top-ten finish.
 
Among other Nagpur players, Vaibhav Raut (5.5 points) finished 33rd while Mrudul Dehankar was placed 53rd. Vaibhav also won five games but lost four while one ended without a result. Mrudul (4.5 points) recorded four wins while suffered five loses. City’s only Grandmaster Raunak Sadhwani had finished runners-up in the second edition of the five-blitz event series. Meanwhile, national triple crown champion GM Aravindh Chithambaram won the final round with 8.5 points.
 
This was his first win in first online blitz event on playchess. He finished half a point ahead of the others in competition. IM Terry Renato of Peru scored eight points and finished second. World No 1 Under-16 GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan scored 7.5 for the third spot. GP Standings leader GM Vaibhav Suri won the MCA GP with a score of 31/40 with stunning performance in all five events. Abudsattorov finished second with 28/40 and GM Vugar Rasulov of Azerbaijan finished third with 26/40. Around 145 players from India, Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Ireland, Peru, Russia, Serbia, Spain, USA and Uzbekistan participated in the fifth Grand Prix event. The events was played on online chess website www.playchess.com in Swiss League System of Play.