Le Quang Liem wins Kolkata Open

Le Quang Liem took clear first at the strong Kolkata Open today. With a quick draw in the last round the Vietnamese GM (2602) finished on a splendid 8/10 (a 2777 performance), ahead of Mamedyarov and Filippov, who shared second place with half a point less. Nigel Short ended on 7/10 which was a performance just slightly below his new 2706 rating.

The 4th Kolkata Open was organized by the local, Alekhine Chess Club and took place September 1-10 in Kolkata, India. The strong open (114 participants with 34 Grandmasters and 27 International Masters) was dedicated to the Year of Russia in India and had two 2700+ players in the field: Shakhryiar Mamedyarov and Nigel Short.

The tournament got international attention due to the Tkachiev-incident, but enough has been said about that - let's return to chess. Nigel Short was among the leaders after three rounds, as we reported earlier, but then fell back with three draws in a row, followed by a loss against Filippov. Finishing with 2.5/3 the Englishman could limit the (rating) damage to a minimum.



Mamedyarov's start wasn't impressive with a draw against IM Sriram Jha in round 2, a loss to Le Quang Liem in round 4 followed by a draw against IM Himanshu Sharma. However, the top seed from Azerbaijan finished strongly and his 4.5/5 in the second half was enough to reach a shared second place with Anton Filippov, Uzbekistan's second grandmaster (behind Rustam Kasimdzhanov).



Le Quang Liem became the deserved winner after finishing on an undefeated 8/10. He beat for instance strong GMs like Mamedyarov, Ganguly and Filippov - the latter with Black in a Caro-Kann in the penultimate round.



Kolkata Open 2009 Final Standings (top 30)

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