Maiden IM norm for young Rohan
PANJIM: State champion and Geno brand ambassador, Rohan Ahuja capitalized on a fantastic run of successes to earn his maiden International Master norm at the Mayor’s Cup International, in Mumbai, recently.
14 Jun, 2015, 12:39AM IST
PANJIM: State champion and Geno brand ambassador, Rohan Ahuja capitalized on a fantastic run of successes to earn his maiden International Master norm at the Mayor’s Cup International, in Mumbai, recently.
He also gained a whopping 104 ELO points, which would enable him to reach a rating of 2322 in the next FIDE rating list. This would make him the second highest rated player in Goa as well as rank him amongst the top 100 Indian chess players.
Starting on a confident note, Rohan defeated the reigning Swedish National champion GM Daniel Semcesen (2471) in round two and in round three, he held India GM Deepan Chakkravarty (2497) to a draw.
After losing the fourth round to IM Priyadarshan (2462) in a marathon encounter lasting 104 moves, Rohan rebounded brilliantly by drawing the fifth round against IM Swayams Mishra (2439) and then went on to defeat IM Himanshu Sharma (2420) in the sixth round.
Another draw in a hard fought battle against IM Ravi Teja (2403) in the eighth round clinched the IM norm with two rounds to spare.
In the ninth round, Rohan was pitted against the Georgian GM and defending champion Levan Pantsulaia (2616). With the IM norm in the bag, Rohan sensed an opportunity for a GM norm in case he could win the last tow rounds and decided to go for it. Though he initially had the Georgian GM on the run, Rohan overextended his position in going for a win and the defending champion successfully exploited the weaknesses to win the game.
Scoring a fluent win in the final round, Rohan secured the prize for the best player under 2299 in the tournament with six points.
Source: http://www.heraldgoa.in