Chennai: FIDE Master V R Aravindh Chithambaram earned his maiden nine-game GM Norm, defeating fellow Indian Grandmaster M R Lalith Babu in the ninth round of the Chennai Grandmaster International Open Chess tournament held in celebration of the FIDE World Championship Match at Nehru Stadium, here today.
Thus far, the 14-year-old Chithambaram has won the National titles in Under 11, 13 & 19 categories. He had won the Under-14 Open category silver medal at World Youth Chess Championship at Maribor, Slovenia last year, after tying for the top spot with Kayden Troff of USA.
His ELO 2726 performance rating here shows the native talent and potential that is bound to take him far.
Sharing the lead at 7.5 points with Chithambaram were GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (India) and IM Mikhail Mozharov (Russia) respectively.
In addition, the day saw a host of nine game Norms being made. Chithambaram and Mikhail Mozharov (Russia) made their GM Norms, while IM Norms were achieved by T U Navin Kanna and N R Vignesh (both India) respectively.
Chennai girl G K Monnisha made her WIM Norm making it a high five for the event.
Important Results (Round 9): (Indians unless specified) Mozharov Mikhail (RUS)7½ drew with Vishnu Prasanna. V 7, Swayams Mishra 6 lost to Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 7½, Lalith Babu M.R. 6 lost to Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. 7½, Popov Ivan (RUS) 6 drew with Papin Vasily (RUS) 6, Neverov Valeriy(UKR)6½ bt Ter-Sahakyan Samvel (ARM) 5½, Borovikov Vladislav (UKR) 6 drewRavichandran Siddharth 6, Laxman R.R. 5 lost to Sethuraman S.P. 7½, Navin Kanna T.U. 5½lost to Shyam Sundar M. 6½, Mirzoev Azer (AZE) 5½ Petrosyan Tigran S. (ARM)5½, Babujian Levon (ARM)6 bt Rathnakaran K. 6.
