Penang Heritage City International Open, 2015

by Priyadarshan Banjan - 13/12/2015

The Penang Heritage City International Open was held from 7-12 December 2015 at Penang, Malaysia. A handful of Indian players made the trip to the beautiful city as it is a part of a series of tournaments in Malaysia. An illustrated report with some choice tactics for our dear readers.

7th Penang Heritage City International Open, 2015

Aerial evening scene of Penang Island [Photo: Goh PS, Wikipedia]

The month of December stands witness to a couple of chess tournaments in Malaysia that attracts a handful of Indians every year. The conditions and environment are friendly and relaxing, perfect to play some good chess. Nine Indians made the trip to the city of Penang in Malaysia to participate in the 2015 Penang Heritage City International Open organized by the Penang Chess Association, which claims to be the oldest chess organization in the country.

The venue was the Red Rock Hotel, and the tournament was a nine round swiss with ninety minutes per player with thirty seconds increment per move from move one. Vietnamese GM Nguyen Duc Hoa won the tournament on tiebreak after he scored 7.0/9.

Penang Port [Photo: GP Song, Wikipedia]

GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (2497) was the best performer for the Indians, scoring 6.5/9 to tie for the second place, but was seventh on tiebreak [Photo: Sa Kannan]

Deepan is known as a player who makes very logical moves in his games. Here are a couple of choice tactics used by him in this tournament:

Manaog-Deepan

Deepan, playing black, spotted a neat way to win yet another pawn

Deepan-Ramnath

White is completely winning, and he finds the best way to finish things with a basic tactic

GM R.R. Laxman also scored 6.5/9 and was eighth on tiebreak

The Tamil Nadu grandmaster is slowly recovering his lost rating points in the last couple of years

IM S. Nitin scored 6.0/9

IM Anurag Mhamal had a bad finish (yet again) and aggregated 5.5/9

Anurag-Wong

Nevertheless, he did find a lovely finish in this position playing white

IM Praveen Kumar C (2231) of Tamil Nadu also finished at 5.5/9

Niranjan Navalgund (2233) had a horrible start to his campaign as he was held to draws by much lower rated players, however, he rallied back to finish at 5.5/9 [Photo: Priyadarshan Banjan]

Niranjan-Dimakiling

White forced resignation in style

IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh (2423) lost his last three games and could muster up only 5.0/9

Final Ranking:

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	3	GM	Nguyen Duc Hoa	VIE	2496	7,0	0,0	53,5	41,00
2	13	IM	Pascua Haridas	PHI	2419	7,0	0,0	49,5	38,00
3	9	GM	Cao Sang	VIE	2433	6,5	0,0	53,0	36,75
4	10	FM	Liu Xiangyi	SIN	2425	6,5	0,0	52,0	35,75
5	8	GM	Bitoon Richard	PHI	2438	6,5	0,0	51,0	35,25
6	31	FM	Reyes Narquinden	PHI	2301	6,5	0,0	51,0	35,25
7	2	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2496	6,5	0,0	49,5	35,25
8	6	GM	Laxman R.R.	IND	2446	6,5	0,0	49,5	34,25
9	5	GM	Villamayor Buenaventura	PHI	2454	6,5	0,0	47,0	32,75
10	15	IM	Tin Jingyao	SIN	2401	6,5	0,0	46,5	30,75

Check the complete standings here.

All games in PGN.

All photos from the official facebook page of Penang Chess Open 2015, unless mentioned