13-year-old Raunak Sadhwani to become India's 65th Grand Master

10/19/2019

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Young Raunak Sadhwani is set to become India's next Grand Master, which would be the country's 65th one, after he managed to churn out a draw against Gabriel Sagrissian to take four points from seven rounds. Other matches saw S. L. Narayanan, D. Gukesh, and D. Harika winning with black pieces.

While legends Viswanathan Anand and B. Adhiban were competing with each other on the leading boards, it was Sadhwani who held off Armenina Grand Master Sagrissian as he extended unbeaten streak in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Prix. It was his sixth successive draw on Thursday.

Coming into the tournament with an ELO rating of 2479, Sadhwani has already garnered 23 points to cross the stipulated mark of 2500. With already two GM norms, the youngster would just need to just be available for the next two rounds and he would be getting his final GM norm. However, the 2731 Elo player could see a hindrance if he saw a walkover in the next two rounds.

Meanwhile, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian shared the lead with 5.5 points in the last round, while Anand and Adhiban drew their matches to stay in the joint 10th spot at 4.5 points. Third-seeded Wesley So got the better of Surya Shekhar Ganguly to match the tally of the Indian duo.

Seventh-round results (involving Indians):

Yuriy Kryvoruhko (Ukr, 4.5 drew with Viswanathan Anand (4.5);

B. Adhiban (4.5) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 4.5);

Wesley So (USA, 4.5) bt Surya Shekhar Ganguly (3.5);

Vidit Gujrathi (4) drew with Alexey Sarana (Rus, 4);

Raunak Sadhwani (4) drew with Gabriel Sargissian (Arm, 4);

K. Sasikiran (3.5) lost to Aryan Tari (4.5);

Ivan Cheparinov (4) drew with S. P. Sethuraman (4);

P. Hari Krishna (3.5) drew with Abhimanyu Puranik (4);

Nihal Sarin (3.5) drew with Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 3.5);

Anton Demchenko (Rus, 3) lost to S. L. Narayanan (4);

Axel Bachmann (Par, 2.5) lost to D. Gukesh (3.5);