Surya Shekhar Ganguly played some sparkling chess to win the Belt and Road China Hunan International tournament at Tongguanyao. The 36-year-old ONGC staffer from Kolkata, who started out as the 15th seed, finished with seven points from nine rounds to triumph at what is one of the richest chess events around.
It was probably the finest performance of his long career. Not merely he collected 27.5 Elo points but pocketed $50,000 as well. His rating performance was 2876, way above his current rating of 2638.
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His final tally of seven was half-a-point more than the second-placed Yu Yangyi of the host nation, who was seeded second, and Amin Bassem of Egypt, the fifth seed. Top seed Wei Yi of China was among the six players who scored six points; he was beaten by Ganguly in the fifth round.
The Indian Grandmaster needed only a draw in the final round against Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain, and he got that after 36 moves from the white side of a Sicilian Defence. He finished his campaign unbeaten - five wins and four draws.
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