Chennai Grand Masters: Aravindh astounds Levon in blitz-playoff to clinch title

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu’s Aravindh Chithambaram defied the odds to secure the Chennai Grand Masters title in a high-stakes three-way showdown on the final day here at Anna Centenary Library on Monday.

In the newly introduced Challengers category, Chennai’s Pranav Venkatesh won the title and earned himself a spot at the Masters next year with a draw against Leon Luke in the last round.

The final day kicked off with a shocker when US Grandmaster Levon Aronian drew against Amin Tabatabaei in just about 15 minutes.

Even after playing a stable opening with White, he (Levon) said he had to calculate the probabilities when it comes to risking at the final round and recalled an instance at 2014 Candidates where he learnt it the hard way. There, he pushed hard for a win but ended up losing when everyone else just played a draw.

“The last round is where mathematics starts, and a long time ago, when I was much younger, I would take a lot of risks in the last round, till I got introduced to poker theory by my friend. And he explained to me to calculate all of the outcomes and understand what your abilities are. If the stakes are higher, then we can push and take a risk,” said Levon after his draw.

Just like he had expected, Arjun Erigaisi drew against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and unexpectedly, Aravindh won against Parham to make all of them equal at 4.5 points.

However, the players agreed to a play-off battle, unlike the tie break format in which Gukesh edged Arjun to win the inaugural edition.

In the play-off, both Arjun and Levon won a game each prompting an Armageddon.

Levon then bid 6.40 minutes to play black and held Arjun to a draw to set up the final against Aravindh.

In the title clash, Aravindh came back solid to identify an error from Levon in a rook-pawn end game. The 25-year-old also held on with the black pieces to solidify his title, earning 24.5 FIDE circuit points.

“I was nervous right from the start of the classical tournament itself. I never thought I’d be playing the tiebreaks. Winning with blacks is not at all easy; that too with Parham. Playing with these guys itself, I feel like it's a big achievement.

Aravindh told that he had faced confidence issues for which he had trained to overcome.

“I’m not optimistic in general; a bit of a pessimist, I would say. But sometimes situations trigger me to believe in myself. After making a move, I would go to the restroom and I would talk to myself in the mirror. That actually happened in this tournament also. In the game against Parham which was quite intense, that sort of happened,” he added.

In the day’s other matches, GM Murali Karthikeyan defeated GM R Vaishali while GM Abhimanyu Puranik played out a draw against GM Raunak Sadhwani. GM Harika tried her best to get out her first win of the tournament but had to settle for a draw against GM M Pranesh.