Obtaining the only win on the top 5 boards of the ninth and final round, Australian International Master (IM) of Indian origin Rishi Sardana became the first winner of the Mumbai International GM chess tournament.

He had seven points and a tie-break 2 score of 47. Facing fellow IM Muthaiah Al of India on Board 4, Rishi delivered the final blow on move 72 to surge to top spot. Along with a glittering silver trophy, Rishi went home with a cash prize of Rs 3,25,000.

On Board 1, tournament favourite GM Tuan Minh Tran of Vietnam drew withIndian wunderkind IM Gukesh D to finish with 7 points and an inferior tie-break score to finish second.

Indian GM Abhimanyu Puranik drew with Russian GM Ivan Rozum and finished with seven points and a tie-break score of 43.5 to clinch third place.

WIM Varshini V with 5 points, WGM Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva (Uzbekistan) with 5 points and IM Nisha Mohota with 4.5 points were the top-three female players.

In the Open section, Samrat Ghorai required half a point to win the top prize. He beat Devesh Anand Naik on Board 1 to finish as the topper of his category in the tournament with eight points.

Samrat’s opponent, Devesh, was second with 7.5 points. Aditya Varun Gampa, also on 7.5 points, was third.