In a field comprising highly-rated woman chess players from India and abroad, it was 13-year-old Indian prodigy Divya Deshmukh who had emerged victorious in the 2019 Velammal-AICF Woman Grandmaster round robin chess tournament held at the Abu Sarovar Portico Hotel here on Monday.
The Maharashtra wunderkind scored eight points from eleven rounds to secure the title and prize money of ₹1.5 lakh. This is the first tournament win in the open category for the 2017 under-12 World champion.
During the course of the tournament, she had achieved her first Woman Grandmaster Norm and International Master Norm. Ukrainian Iulija Osmak and P. Michelle Catherina finished second and third respectively, with the latter also achieving her first Woman Grandmaster Norm during the tournament.
The day started with Divya trailing leader Michelle by half a point. While Divya beat Chandreyee Hajra in the final round, Michelle lost to Osmak, allowing Osmak to join Michelle at 7.5 points. With this result, the Ukrainian took the second spot as head-to-head results were used to break ties.
Rating this as a special victory, Divya has set high benchmarks for herself. “My aim is to become a Grandmaster as soon as possible. I will try to become an International Master by 2019. My next tournament will be the Aeroflot Open in Russia and after that, I would be playing the HD Bank Open in Vietnam.
“Here I just wanted to play good chess and let the results follow,” said the teenager who counts World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand among her idols.
The results: Round 11 : P. Michelle Catherina 7.5 lost to Osmak Iulija (Ukr) 7.5; Divya Deshmukh 8 bt Chandreyee Hajra 2; Sapale Saloni 4.5 drew with Aakanksha Hagawane 6.5; Munguntuul Batkhuyag (Mgl) 7 bt Babiy Olga (Ukr) 6; V. Varshini 3 lost to Uuriintuya Uurtsaikh (Mgl) 5.5; Franco Valencia Angela (Col) 3.5 drew with Nakhbayeva Guliskhan (Kaz) 5 .
Final standings: 1. Divya Deshmukh 8.0 points; 2. Iulija Osmak (Ukr 7.5); 3. P. Michelle Catherina (7.5); 4. Batkhuyagiin Möngöntuul (Mgl, 7); 5. Aakanksha Hagawane (6.5); 6. Olga Babiy (Ukr, 6); 7. Uurtsaikh Uuriintuya (Mgl, 5.5); 8. Guliskhan Nakhbayeva (Kaz, 5); 9. Saloni Sapale (4.5); 10. Angela Franco Valencia (Col, 3.5); 11. V. Varshini (3); 12. Chandreyee Hajra (2) .
Published - February 04, 2019 10:54 pm IST
