Commonwealth Chess Championship | Abhijeet Gupta, Tania Sachdev win gold medals
Abhijeet Gupta claimed his fifth title while Tania Sachdev retained the women’s title. While Gupta defeated Arjun Erigaisi to emerge the leader on the final day after it became a three-way affair in the ninth round, Tania took the title on superior tie-break score against Divya Deshmukh.
After his first title in 2013, and three consecutive titles from 2015 to 2017, Gupta had missed out on the event in 2018 when P. Karthikeyan took it home. However, “Mr. Commonwealth” returned this year to win his fifth title by securing 7.5 points.
Gupta caught Erigaisi in a checkmating net in 39 moves to reach 7.5 points, after Aravindh and Narayanan drew their battle in 32 moves. Erigaisi clinched top spot in the open under-16s group.Â
Based on their progressive tie-break scores, C. Aravindh topped the three-way tie to finish second. Swapnil S. Dhopade, and S. L. Narayanan came third, and fourth places respectively. All three had finished with 7 points after nine rounds.
Meanwhile, in the women’s group, Tania Sachdev retained the women’s title after being held at six points with two-time World Cadet Champion, Divya Deshmukh. However, Sachdev took the title on superior tie-break score. Bhakti Kulkarni came third. Previously, Deshmukh had claimed the top spot in the U-14 girls' group.
