Deepak Katiyar wins Beacon Open in Jaipur

by Rishi Kaushik - 19/08/2017

The GMAX Album 1^st Chess Beacon FIDE Rated Chess Tournament was quite a spectacle in the royal Rajasthani city of Jaipur. It was organised purely with the aim of promoting the game and was successful in all respects. The tournament attracted 460 participants from all across the country. In fact, there was one player from Bangladesh too. The organisers also gave free entries to 12 kids from a local orphange. Deepak Katiyar won the tournament with a score of 7.5/9 and Prince Bajaj completed his IM title formalities by reaching 2400 on the Elo list. Here's an extensive report with pictures by tournament director Rishi Kaushik.

The GMAX Album 1st Chess Beacon FIDE Rated Chess Tournament organised at Jaipur from 12th to 16th August gave a fillip to chess in Rajasthan. The tournament was conducted at the World Trade Park, Jaipur, the best shopping mall in Jaipur. The venue was a huge air conditioned hall on the second floor which could accommodate around 600 players comfortably. The ambience was so good that the players enjoyed the tournament thoroughly.

The Majestic Venue of the Beacon Open

A look from the inside!

Prince Bajaj of Delhi was the top seed in the tournament (who, before withdrawing from the tournament, completed his IM norm requirements of reaching a live rating of 2400), followed by Nassir Wajih of Railways. The tournament attracted about 460 players from many states like Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, UP, MP, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, AP, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka etc. The tournament was a nine round Swiss format with a time control of 90 minutes for each player with an increment of 30 seconds per move.

Prince Bajaj felicitated for his IM title by Dr Anupama and Chief Arbiter Ananthram along with Organising Secretary Amit Gupta, Tournament Director Rishi Kaushik and CPA President Rajender Arora

The important result of the second round was that the fifth seeded Feroz Ahmed of Bangladesh was held to a draw by Oshan Modi of Haryana, rated about 800 points behind him. Likewise, third seeded Yunus Khan of MP had to split the point with Gautam Kataria of Rajasthan in the next round. There was an upset galore in the fourth round, with four of the top five boards had the results in favour of the lower rated players. The numero uno player Nassir Wajih (after the withdrawal of Prince) lost to Shivam Verma of Bihar and Devendra Kumar went down to Deepak Batra of Punjab.

Players in action!

Six players – Deepak Katiyar of Railways, Souhardo Basak of WB, Ashish Kumar of UP, Anil Shivpuri of Delhi, Sher Singh of Rajasthan and Deepak Batra were leading with five points each. Ashish Kumar defeated Anil Shivpuri, which was the only decisive result among the leaders. He maintained a clean slate of 6 points in as many rounds. But, the lead changed hands to five other players after seven rounds. Punit Indora of Haryana shocked the hitherto leader Ashish, Deepak Katiyar overwhelmed Deepak Batra, Sher Singh got the better of Souhardo, SM Umer of MP subdued Rathore Mahendra Singh of Rajasthan and Esshan Wadhawan of Delhi overcame the resistance of Darji Giridharilal of Jaipur.

Young or old, everybody enchanted by the superbly conducted event

While some were delighted to be photographed...

...some others were too lost in their game to pose for a picture

And there were a few more too, who prayed more than they played!

Keeping up with the spirit of promoting the game, the organisers made sure to take the game to everyone who loved it. Twelve children from a local orphanage called Apna Ghar were given free entry into the tournament. And how much the kids loved it can be seen from the picture below. ChessBase India would like to extend its appreciation to the organisers of the Beacon Open for this heartwarming gesture.

Kids from Apna Ghar were visibly delighted playing their first rated tournament!

AICF Secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan with AICF Joint Secretary and Tournament Director Rishi Kaushik

Deepak Katiyar and Umer S.M registered wins in the eighth round to share the lead with 7.5 points after eight rounds. Sher Singh, Ashish Kumar, Esshaan Wadhawan and FIDE arbiter Rajendra Teli were trailing half a point behind. In the final round, Deepak Katiyar drew with Umer and Esshan defeated Rajendra to pave way for a three-way way tie at the top. After applying tiebreaks, Deepak Katiyar was declared winner and Umer runner up. Deepak received a cash prize of Rs.31000/- out of the total prize fund of Rs. three lakhs.

Deepak Katiyar receiving the title prize

Umer SM finished joint first but had to settle for the second prize because of worse tie-break score

Laxmi Narayan Dhamani Managing Director, Dhamani Groups, Sri. Ashok Lahoti, Mayor of Jaipur, Sri. Piyush Garg, Sri. Tikriwal of GMax Album and Sri. Mukesh Mishra CEO of Jaipur Marathon were the chief guests at the prize distribution function. The category prize winners were awarded beautiful macro wooden chess pieces.

Category Prize Winners

Ayush Bhai Mehta won the category prize for Best 1601-1800 rated player

Garv Gaur from Haryana clinched the category prize for best 1401-1600 rated player

Delhi's Arush Gupta won the prize for the best 1201-1400 rated player.

Ishvi Aggrawal won the best 1000-1200 rated player prize

Jaipur's Girdhari Lal Darji won the Best Unrated Player prize

UP's Satvik Gupta lifted the best U-15 player trophy

Haryana's Mihir Godawat won the best U-13 player prize

Bhavya Gupta from Delhi was the best U-11 player

Another Delhite, Aryan Arora won in the Best U-9 player category

Sanskriti Goyal from UP took home the Best Female Player prize

Another player from UP, Dinesh Sinha, bagged the Best Veteran prize

Anmol Sharma clinched the prize for the Best Jaipur player

Ashish Chaudhari won the best Rajasthan player prize

Tournament's Chief Arbiter, IA Ananthraman was also felicitated with a memento

Final Standings

Click here for full standings

About the Author:

Rishi Kaushik is the Tournament Director of Chess Beacon FIDE Rating Tournament in Jaipur. He is a chess player from Rajasthan having AGM title and Geospatial Consultant by profession with Tata Consultancy Services, Gurgaon. He always wanted to contribute towards Rajasthan Chess and this tournament that he has organized under the banner of one year old "Chess Parents Association" in the first step in that direction.