Indian Glory At Hastings, Rilton Cup
Two traditional end-of-the-year tournaments were won by Indian grandmasters. GM Krishnan Sasikiran finished clear first at the Rilton Cup in Sweden, while GM Deep Sengupta did the same in Hastings.
They are two of the longest running tournaments, and they always take place before and after New Year. The Hastings Chess Congress is in fact the oldest still running tournament in the world (running since 1920, beating Wijk aan Zee by 18 years), whereas the Rilton Cup was held for the 46th time this year.
Hastings Chess Congress
The Hastings Masters, the top group of the festival, was won by GM Deep Sengupta of India. He was the only player to finish on 7.0/9, half a point more than a group of five players with 6.5/9 each.
Deep won a crucial final round game against one of his compatriots, GM Murali Karthikeyan.
Deep Sengupta. | Photo Brendan O'Gorman.
There was another story to this tournament. One of the players who finished on 6.5 points was IM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, the youngest international master ever. You might remember him being called "double Anand" during the Isle of Man tournament!
Here's Praggnanandhaa's great game from the final round.
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. | Photo Brendan O'Gorman.
2016-2017 Hastings Masters | Final Standings (Top 20)
| # | SNo | Fed | Ti | Name | Rtg | Pts |
| 1 | 4 | GM | Sengupta Deep | 2575 | 7.0 | |
| 2 | 9 | IM | Galyas, Miklos | 2473 | 6.5 | |
| 3 | 11 | IM | Praggnanandhaa R | 2452 | 6.5 | |
| 4 | 16 | GM | Lalic, Bogdan | 2443 | 6.5 | |
| 5 | 18 | IM | Das Arghyadip | 2399 | 6.5 | |
| 6 | 20 | FM | Haria Ravi | 2382 | 6.5 | |
| 7 | 1 | GM | Sethuraman S.P. | 2647 | 6.0 | |
| 8 | 2 | GM | Fier, Alexandr | 2590 | 6.0 | |
| 9 | 3 | GM | Gledura, Benjamin | 2584 | 6.0 | |
| 10 | 5 | GM | Karthikeyan, Murali | 2530 | 6.0 | |
| 11 | 6 | GM | Rasmussen, Allan Stig | 2502 | 6.0 | |
| 12 | 13 | IM | Tan, Justin | 2451 | 6.0 | |
| 13 | 7 | GM | Gormally, Daniel W | 2493 | 5.5 | |
| 14 | 8 | GM | Hebden, Mark L | 2492 | 5.5 | |
| 15 | 10 | IM | Kjartansson, Gudmundur | 2468 | 5.5 | |
| 16 | 12 | FM | Hansen, Mads | 2452 | 5.5 | |
| 17 | 15 | IM | Cheng, Bobby | 2446 | 5.5 | |
| 18 | 17 | GM | Flear, Glenn C | 2428 | 5.5 | |
| 19 | 25 | FM | Thybo, Jesper Sondergaard | 2352 | 5.5 | |
| 20 | 27 | IM | Bates, Richard A | 2347 | 5.5 |
(Full final standings here.)
Rilton Cup
Like Hastings, the Rilton Cup was a nine-round Swiss. The tournament is Sweden’s biggest and most famous international chess tournament, once initiated by a donation from the late doctor Tore Rilton.
Since 1985, the tournament is financially safe and continues to be for many years. Over the years, the tournament has been very helpful for Swedish juniors.
Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran decided not to go to England but to play this tournament instead. That turned out to be a good choice, as he emerged as the sole winner.
His win in round eight made once again clear that these Indian grandmasters don't seem to be interested in playing short draws against each other!
Krishnan Sasikiran. | Photo Lars OA Hedlund.
2016-2017 Rilton Cup | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk | SNo | Fed | Name | Rtg | Pts | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 2 | Sasikiran, Krishnan | 2661 | 7.5 | 45.5 | 49.0 | 38.0 | |
| 2 | 8 | Volkov, Sergey | 2624 | 7.0 | 47.0 | 49.5 | 34.0 | |
| 3 | 1 | Kamsky, Gata | 2661 | 6.5 | 49.5 | 54.0 | 36.5 | |
| 4 | 13 | Urkedal, Frode | 2557 | 6.5 | 47.0 | 49.5 | 32.5 | |
| 5 | 18 | Swapnil S. Dhopade | 2526 | 6.5 | 45.5 | 49.5 | 37.5 | |
| 6 | 21 | Pavlovic, Milos | 2500 | 6.5 | 44.5 | 47.0 | 32.5 | |
| 7 | 14 | Kulaots, Kaido | 2556 | 6.5 | 44.0 | 47.5 | 33.5 | |
| 8 | 6 | Sokolov, Ivan | 2632 | 6.5 | 43.5 | 47.0 | 36.0 | |
| 9 | 11 | Antipov, Mikhail Al. | 2580 | 6.5 | 42.0 | 46.0 | 32.5 | |
| 10 | 16 | Shyam, Sundar M. | 2532 | 6.5 | 42.0 | 45.0 | 32.5 | |
| 11 | 9 | Postny, Evgeny | 2620 | 6.0 | 46.0 | 51.0 | 31.0 | |
| 12 | 17 | Tikkanen, Hans | 2531 | 6.0 | 43.0 | 47.5 | 30.0 | |
| 13 | 5 | Goganov, Aleksey | 2637 | 6.0 | 41.5 | 44.5 | 31.0 | |
| 14 | 39 | C R G Krishna | 2390 | 6.0 | 41.5 | 44.5 | 27.5 | |
| 15 | 3 | Kravtsiv, Martyn | 2645 | 6.0 | 40.0 | 40.5 | 29.0 | |
| 16 | 7 | Neiksans, Arturs | 2631 | 6.0 | 39.5 | 43.0 | 32.0 | |
| 17 | 4 | Bluebaum, Matthias | 2640 | 6.0 | 38.5 | 42.0 | 29.5 | |
| 18 | 40 | Grunberg, Mihai | 2389 | 6.0 | 37.5 | 40.0 | 27.5 | |
| 19 | 15 | Ivanov, Sergey | 2545 | 5.5 | 45.5 | 50.0 | 32.0 | |
| 20 | 20 | Hillarp Persson, Tiger | 2511 | 5.5 | 45.0 | 48.5 | 30.5 |
(Full final standings here.)
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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