Pune: Top seed Surya Sekhar Ganguly failed to score a win in the last round and the Cut 1 version of Bucholdz tiebreak further rubbed it in. Ganguly, former second of V Anand, was pipped to the post in the 11th round of the National chess championship in Gurugram, Haryana, on Tuesday. The 41-year-old West Bengal GM had won six successive titles from 2003 to 2008 and he was in clear lead from the sixth round.
Ganguly could only manage a draw against IM Himal Gusain of Railways (Elo 2511) in the last round. Karthik Venkatraman of Andhra Pradesh beat another Railways player GM Mitrabha Guha to win the title despite a three-way tie at the top with Ganguly and Neelash Saha (nine points each). It is Venkatraman’s second national title.
It was a pity that the title was decided on a numeric tiebreak and not by playing over the board, especially with prize money among the players with equal points NOT being shared. Bucholdz Cut1 adds tournament points of all your opponents barring the lowest scoring opponent. Ganguly was half a point behind Venkatraman on that yardstick, but his performance rating was higher (Elo 2685) than that of the eventual champion’s (Elo 2653).
Both had seven wins and four draws each. Saha had nine wins and two defeats. The top three prizes were Rs 6 lakh, Rs 5 lakh and Rs 4 lakh.
Results in the last four rounds for the three table-toppers were quite different. Ganguly drew all those games, Saha won all and Venkatraman won two and drew two. The National cham.