Second seed Sahaj Grover won the KCF Capablanca GM chess tournament by scoring 7.5 points from nine rounds of the 10-player round-robin event at the Maslow Time Square Hotel here.
Assured of the title with round to spare, Sahaj drew the final round with top seeded Serbian Grandmaster Aleksa Strikovic in just 11 moves. Strikovic finished runner-up with six points.
Read: Victorious Caruana regains lead ahead of final round
It turned out to be a clinical performance from the former World junior bronze medallist. He won six of the first seven rounds and drew the last two games quickly to keep the victory margin to 1.5 points.
The performance helped Sahaj to bounce back into the 2500-rating bracket. He started the event with a rating of 2490 and performed at 2655 to gain 17 rating points.
This was Sahaj’s second title in South Africa this year, following his resounding triumph in the Broadwalk Pearson chess tournament in March in Port Elizabeth. Last July, Sahaj claimed the classical, rapid and blitz titles in the South African Open.
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