FM Gauri Shankar Scores 5.5/9 to Get an IM Norm at GM Norm Invitational

The Atlantic Chess Association held the Atlantic Chess Independence Day GM Norm Invitational from June 29th to July 4th. You can see my blog about the details and format of this event here.

We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to all the GM's that were able to come and play. Here are the following GM's that played in our event:

1. GM Sergey Erenburg (USA, 2526 FIDE)

2. GM Oliver Barbosa (PHI, 2482 FIDE)

3. GM Vojtech Plat (CZE, 2465 FIDE)

4. GM Gabor Nagy (HUN, 2440 FIDE)

The tournament was a huge success. I will cover in brief some exciting games that were played in the 9 round, Round Robin tournament, but if you would like to take a look at any additional games, you can view the broadcast for all the rounds at Lichess Broadcast or Chess.com Broadcast.

The tournament was 9 rounds, in a Round Robin format, where each player plays everyone else. Here were the following players: GM Sergey Erenburg, GM Oliver Barbosa, GM Vojtech Plat, GM Gabor Nagy, IM Johnathan Han, IM Sahil Sinha, IM Nicholas Vettese, FM Lucius Melillo, FM Gauri Shankar, and FM Aziz Degenbaev.

IM Vettese got off to a very strong start, beating GM Erenburg, IM Han, and FM Melillo in the first three rounds. His game against Erenburg was particularly notable for fighting back through complications from a losing position and going on to win the game: 

FM Degenbaev also took charge, albeit a relatively slow start, by winning his game against IM Han in Round 5. He was able to launch a strong attack against White's queenside, and ended up winning through complications: 

Let us fast forward to Round 7. Both FM Degenbaev and FM Gauri Shankar were on 3.5/6, and needed another 2/3 points to get an IM norm with 5.5/9. This was their fated encounter, a long fighting game which ultimately went in the direction of Shankar:

This meant that Shankar only need another 1/2 points to get his IM norm. Degenbaev, on the other hand, had a steep climb ahead of him, as he would have needed to win both of his next rounds in order to earn the norm. Degenbaev unfortunately lost his next round game as well, against IM Vettese: 

Meanwhile, Shankar drew against IM Sinha, and went on to draw to FM Melillo in the last round to receive his IM norm! We extend a great congratulations to him!

Additionally, our assistant TD, NA Jack Scheible, received his Fide Arbiter norm! We want to thank both him and our Chief TD, IA Greg Vaserstein, for being invaluable in making sure this tournament ran smoothly. 

Of course, we also want to thank all the players for coming to play at our event. It took a great deal of effort to organize and run this event, and it wouldn't be possible if it weren't for them. See you at the next tournament!