Gukesh convincingly defends Menorca Open title, Pranav Venkatesh second

by Shahid Ahmed - 17/04/2023

It is not everyday we get to see a 2700+ playing an open tournament, let alone win it for two years in-a-row. GM D Gukesh won the inaugural edition last year and became World no.80. Heading into the second edition, he was World no.20 who had 2730 Elo rating points. After nine rounds, he scored an unbeaten 7/9, defeated Pranav Venkatesh 1.5-0.5 in the Blitz Playoffs to retain his Menorca Open title. Although ten players finished with the same score 7/9, it was Gukesh and Pranav who had all three of their tie-break scores exactly the same. After penultimate round, Gukesh was World no.17 in the live ratings and he still is. The teenager is gaining two Elo rating points. In one year, Gukesh climbed from World no.80 to 17 and he did not forget his path towards becoming the Elite. Pranav V secured runner-up, Aryan Chopra fourth and once again GM Koustav Chatterjee secured tenth place. Photo: Menorca Chess Open

Top ten score 7/9 each

We all know why the world's elite players don't risk playing open events. The current rating system is such that the mathematical probability of gaining rating points is much less, compared to losing, which means dropping not only valuable rating points but also going down in the ranks. Hence, it is quite understandable that a lot of players don't prefer to play open events. But that is not how 16-year-old D Gukesh operates. He had a fantastic year in 2022. He decided to test himself, defend his title and boy he did that handsomely. One can only this will inspire more elite players to play in open events and take some risk sometimes, so that the chess universe can see fresh matchups which they always crave for. The total prize fund of the tournament was €16000. The top three prizes were €3000, €2400 and €1600 along with a trophy each.

2nd Menorca Open 2023 champion - GM D Gukesh 7/9 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

Runner-up - GM Pranav Venkatesh 7/9 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

Second Runner-up - GM Jorden van Foreest (NED) 7/9 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

GM D Gukesh - GM Vladimir Fedoseev: 0.5-0.5 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

Pranav V - Prraneeth

Position after 28...c5

After a bit of back and forth play, IM Prraneeth Vuppala (2437) made an irreversible mistake 28...c5 against GM Pranav Venkatesh (2545). 28...c5 surrenders the control of the d-file. 29.Nf5 Rxd1 30.Rxd1 c4 31.Bd2 Re6 32.Bc3 White makes the most out of his bishop pair Ne5 33.Rd8+ Kh7 34.Nd6 Bc6 35.Bxe5 Rxe5 36.Nxf7 Re7 37.e5+ g6 38.Rd6 and it's all over for Black.

GM Pranav Venkatesh defeated IM Prraneeth Vuppala convincingly | Photo: Geert van der Velde

All top ten players ended up with the same score 7/9 after the final round. However, only GM D Gukesh and GM Pranav Venkatesh ended up with the exact same tie-breaks: TB1 56, TB2 51.5 and TB3 37.5. Thus, they had to Blitz Playoff games.

Blitz Playoff 1: D Gukesh won the first game against Pranav Venkatesh | Photo: Geert van der Velde

Blitz Playoff 2: GM Pranav Venkatesh - GM D Gukesh: 0.5-0.5 | Photo: Geert van der Velde

Gukesh won the first Blitz Playoff and drew the second, thus he became champion of Menorca Open, for the second consecutive year. Pranav Venkatesh was placed second.

Runner-up - GM Pranav Venkatesh 7/9 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

Gukesh tweeted on his triumph

Sethuraman congratulated the talented youngster and said something very important

GM Aryan Chopra defeated GM Tomas Sosa (ARG) to finish fourth | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

4th GM Aryan Chopra 7/9 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

10th IM Koustav Chatterjee 7/9 | Photo: Menorca Chess Open

IM Koustav Chatterjee drew with GM Hans Niemann (USA) in the final round to finish tenth overall and reclaim his well-deserved GM title | Photo: Anniken Vestby/SjakkTromsø

Yes we did announce, Koustav Chatterjee becoming India's 78th GM early in January of this year. He had scored all three GM-norms and crossed 2500 in the August FIDE Rating list. However, during his title application, he was informed that one of his norms will not be counted due to some technical reasons. So what did Koustav do? He delivered a stellar performance at this event and earned his fourth GM-norm. Now once again he can be called Grandmaster and there is no dispute in that as he fulfilled all checkboxes to earn his fourth GM-norm.

What a fantastic performance to earn his fourth GM-norm and secure his GM-title once again

A total of 200 players including 37 GMs, 30 IMs, 3 WGMs and 6 WIMs took part from 38 countries across the world in Group A (>1750). The six day nine-round Swiss League Rating tournament was organized by Chess Menorca from 11th to 16th April 2023 at Ciutadella in Menorca, Spain. The time control of the tournament was 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move no.1.

Replay Round 9 games

Round 9 results

Rd.	Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
9	1	1	GM	Gukesh D	2730	6½	½ - ½	6½	GM	Fedoseev Vladimir	2674	4
9	2	2	GM	Niemann Hans Moke	2706	6½	½ - ½	6½	IM	Koustav Chatterjee	2520	28
9	4	9	GM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2608	6	½ - ½	6½	GM	Kobo Ori	2549	21
9	5	23	GM	Sosa Tomas	2544	6	0 - 1	6	GM	Aryan Chopra	2607	10
9	6	29	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2516	6	0 - 1	6	GM	Xu Xiangyu	2587	15
9	7	22	GM	Pranav V	2545	6	1 - 0	6	IM	Prraneeth Vuppala	2437	54
9	12	35	IM	Tiglon Bryce	2502	5½	½ - ½	5½	GM	Visakh N R	2552	20
9	14	31	GM	Krzyzanowski Marcin	2511	5½	½ - ½	5½		Jinan Jomon	2421	58
9	15	17	GM	Sanal Vahap	2582	5	1 - 0	5½	GM	Raja Rithvik R	2472	41
9	19	50	IM	Zhao Yuanhe	2447	5	1 - 0	5	GM	Pranav Anand	2525	26
9	21	30	GM	Iniyan P	2515	5	0 - 1	5	FM	Seemann Jakub	2439	53
9	22	34	IM	Aditya Mittal	2505	5	1 - 0	5	FM	Trost Edvin	2398	64
9	23	36	IM	Vignesh N R	2497	5	1 - 0	5	IM	Kushagra Mohan	2400	63
9	24	40	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2476	5	1 - 0	5	IM	Mohammad Fahad Rahman	2396	65
9	25	44	IM	Fernandez Guillen Ernesto J.	2461	5	1 - 0	5	IM	Sidhant Mohapatra	2376	70
9	27	76	FM	Aarav Dengla	2349	4½	0 - 1	4½	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	2609	8
9	28	13	GM	Can Emre	2594	4½	1 - 0	4½	FM	Sahithi Varshini M	2260	87
9	30	46	FM	Panda Sambit	2452	4½	1 - 0	4½		De Groote Ewoud	2207	97
9	31	80		Sanket Chakravarty	2327	4½	½ - ½	4½	GM	Cabrera Alexis	2450	47
9	32	84	FM	Bizhigitov Zhangir	2285	4½	1 - 0	4½	IM	Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad	2441	51
9	33	55	IM	Low Zhen Yu Cyrus	2425	4½	½ - ½	4½	WIM	Pujari Rucha	2195	99
9	35	59	IM	Poormosavi Seyed Kian	2418	4½	1 - 0	4½	WIM	Pandey Srishti	2174	105
9	37	86	FM	Sourath Biswas	2265	4½	½ - ½	4½	FM	Shivakumar Shawnak	2418	61
9	38	62	WGM	Vantika Agrawal	2407	4½	1 - 0	4½		Aguilo Benejam Alfredo	2064	126
9	40	94	FM	Laurent Julien G.	2223	4½	0 - 1	4½	IM	Padmini Rout	2388	68
9	41	101	IM	Mannion Stephen R	2190	4½	½ - ½	4½	FM	Panesar Vedant	2362	73
9	45	69	IM	Ajay Krishna S	2382	4	½ - ½	4	IM	Borsos Bogdan	2170	107
9	47	72	WGM	Nandhidhaa P V	2362	4	½ - ½	4	FM	Mahitosh Dey	2154	109
9	48	112		Sanroman Costas Mauro	2132	4	½ - ½	4	FM	Karthik Rajaa	2302	81
9	65	124		Manukonda Arun	2072	3½	- - +	3½		Fellowes Billy	1721	194
9	66	184		Sureda Gonzalez Miquel	1792	3½	0 - 1	3½		Phatak Aanjaneya	2070	125

Details

Final standings

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	1	GM	Gukesh D	IND	2730	7	56	51,5	37,5
	22	GM	Pranav V	IND	2545	7	56	51,5	37,5
3	3	GM	Van Foreest Jorden	NED	2680	7	54,5	49,5	38
4	10	GM	Aryan Chopra	IND	2607	7	53,5	48,5	37
5	4	GM	Fedoseev Vladimir	FID	2674	7	52,5	47,5	36,5
6	2	GM	Niemann Hans Moke	USA	2706	7	50,5	47	36
7	21	GM	Kobo Ori	ISR	2549	7	50	45,5	35,5
8	7	GM	Chigaev Maksim	FID	2617	7	50	45,5	34,5
9	15	GM	Xu Xiangyu	CHN	2587	7	50	45,5	34
10	28	IM	Koustav Chatterjee	IND	2520	7	47	43	34,5
11	9	GM	Harsha Bharathakoti	IND	2608	6,5	52,5	48	35,5
12	43	IM	Sokolovsky Yahli	ISR	2464	6,5	47	43,5	31,5
13	5	GM	Nguyen Thai Dai Van	CZE	2649	6	53,5	49	35,5
14	16	GM	Albornoz Cabrera Carlos Daniel	CUB	2586	6	52,5	48	35
15	33	GM	Xu Yi	CHN	2505	6	52	47,5	33
16	11	GM	Warmerdam Max	NED	2605	6	50,5	46,5	33
17	17	GM	Sanal Vahap	TUR	2582	6	50,5	46	33
18	29	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	IND	2516	6	50	46,5	34
19	54	IM	Prraneeth Vuppala	IND	2437	6	49	47	33
20	32	GM	Henderson De La Fuente Lance	AND	2506	6	49	44,5	33,5

Details

Links

Official site

Tournament regulations

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