Indian players recorded a clean sweep in the Silver Lake Open classical chess tournament in Serbia on Wednesday as Grandmasters Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani finished in the first and second positions respectively, while Abhimanyu Puranik bagged the third spot.
The open international rating event saw 131 players from 27 countries participating.
The gold medal was clinched by 16-year-old Nihal, who won eight of the nine points to finish with a score of 8.0/9.
Raunak and Abhimanyu both finished on seven points each but based on the Buchholz tie-break score of 51-48.5, the silver medal was awarded to Raunak.
“Obviously very happy, I tried to give my best. Very thankful to both Akshayakalpa, my sponsor and Westbridge Anand Academy — especially Vishy Anand sir,” Nihal was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
Great results for Indian chess! @NihalSarin @ArjunErigaisi and a big congrats to the Indian origin Abhimanyu Misra on becoming the youngest GM! Nihal is part of the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy and Arjun is a player I follow closely and play training games with.
— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) July 1, 2021
Raunak added: “Happy to finish second in such a strong field. It was amazing to return to over-the-board chess. I hope I can play better chess in upcoming tournaments.”
Also read: Abhimanyu Mishra breaks Sergey Karjakin’s record, becomes youngest chess grandmaster in history
