Team Herald
PANJIM: International Master Nitish Belurkar (rating 2426) was crowned champion at the 1st Indore Mayor’s Cup International Grandmaster Tournament at Indore. He scored 8.5 points out of 10 rounds and remaining undefeated.
In all, 217 players from 9 Federations including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India and FIDE participated. This included 16 GMs, 21 IMs, 7 WIMs, 13 FMs , 4 WFMs, 14 CMs and 2 WCMs.
Nitish had a rating gain of 24.3 points with a performance rating of 2611. He won a cash prize of Rs. 3 lakhs and a trophy. The tournament had a total prize fund of Rs. 33 lakhs.
Nitish had a brilliant run in this tournament defeating GM Savchenko Boris, FIDE 2540; GM Deep Sengupta, India 2484; FM Ritviz Parab, India 2328 and FM Harsh Suresh, India 2261. He drew with GM Deepan Chakravarty, 2432; IM Aronyak Ghosh, 2534 and IM Viani Dcunha.
Among other Goan players who participated, IM Ameya Audi 2387 and FM Ritviz Parab 2328 also achieved podium finishes scoring seven points each and were placed 11th and 13th places respectively. Mandar Lad and Ethan Vaz scored 5.5 points each and were placed in the 80th and 82nd places respectively.
