Bhubaneswar: WGM and IM Padmini Rout of Odisha dished out a brilliant performance as she clinched the women’s title of the Asian Continental Chess Championship in Makati City, Tuesday.
The 24-year-old Padmini played out a quick draw against WGM Jue Wang of China in the ninth and final round to clinch the game. Padmini was tied at seven points at the end of the final rounds with Singapore’s WGM Qianyun Gong but emerged victorious on the basis of better tie break score.
With this title, Padmini also qualified for the 2020 Women’s World Chess Championships. Padmini showed her class stamping her authority as she had a flying start scoring 5.5/6 quickly before consolidating with three draws at the end.
Among other Indians, Surya Shekhar Ganguly lost to Vietnam’s GM Quang Liem Le in a 66 moves to be satisfied with the runner-up trophy.
The victory also ensured that Liem Le bagged the crown on better tie break score in a three way tie for the top spot which saw GM Yi Wei of China and GM M.amin Tabatabaei of Iran finished with 6.5 points from a possible nine. Another Indian SP Sethuraman finished fifth with six points from nine rounds just like Ganguly.
However, the tournament ran into some problems even before it started as Indian players including Vidith Gujrathi were attacked by the local goons just outside the hotel
Vidith had also complained about the facilities that were given to them claiming that they had to pay three times more than the actual prize for hotels which had no internet, no drinking water and awful food.