Han Ximin
ximhan@126.com
DING LIREN, the No. 1 chess player in China, won the championship and US$20,000 award at the Shenzhen Longgang Chess Grandmaster Tournament, which ended in Longgang District on Sunday.
Six chess masters from five countries each attended 10 rounds of the competition in the past 11 days.
Anish Giri from the Netherlands and Peter Svidler from Russia won the second and third places.
The tournament is regarded as the highest-level chess contest in Asia this year.
In the 10-round contest, Ding accumulated 6.5 points with three victories and 7 draws to claim the title.
Giri took second place with 5.5 points, which he accumulated in one victory and 9 draws.
“I feel very lucky because each round of the contest was risky and I finally managed to secure first place through the victory in the last round with Indian player Pentala Harikrishna,” said Ding, who became the youngest individual to win a national championship in China in 2009.
Ding was champion in the 2011 and 2012 National Individual Championships. He won third place in the Biel Grandmaster Match in 2013.
In the last round, Giri defeated another Chinese player, Yu Yangyi, to take second place. “I completed my contest, but Ding won. He performed better,” said Giri, who became the youngest grandmaster in the world in 2009.
Yu became grandmaster in 2009 and was U10 champion in the World Youth Championship 2004. He wasn’t satisfied as he couldn’t keep the dominance he had gained in the first several rounds. Yu ranked fourth among the six contestants. Svidler, who had represented Russia at the Chess Olympiad 10 times and won the Chess World Cup 2011, took third place.
Harikrishna, the youngest grandmaster from India in 2001, and Michael Adams from the U.K., whose highest ranking was world No. 4, took fifth and sixth places.
Ye Jiangchuan, head coach of the National Chess Team and vice chairman of the Chinese Chess Association, thought that the tournament was a good platform for Chinese players to exchange with the world’s top players.
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