Chandigarh, October 25, 2016: Chandigarh’s top chess player 22-year old Himal Gusain performed exceptionally well in the M.Chigorin Memorial Chess tournament 2016 held in Russia, where a total of 371 players from all over the world (31 countries) were participating out of which 37 were Grandmasters.
Himal secured respectable 8th position after defeating the Grandmaster Rozum Ivan of Russia. In the penultimate round he defeated Women Fide Master Martynyuk Elizaveta of Russia to get the final International Master Norm. After winning the final round game against Russian Grandmaster he also got his 1st Grandmaster Norm and taken the first step towards becoming a Grandmaster.
Himal Gusain scored 7 points out of 10. He won 5 games, drew 2 games (against Grandmasters) and lost only 1 game from Grandmaster Gata Kamsky. His rating performance here was 2587 and he increased 19 rating points. He will have now Fide rating 2448.
This tournament was one of the strongest event as the former World Chess Champion Alexander Khalifman(World Champion 1999-2000) of Russia who secured 18th position in this event, Gata Kamsky of USA (World Championship Candidate 1993- 1996) who secured 3rd position here were participating along with several other world’s top ranked players.
With this performance Himal has completed all the requirement to become 1st International Master from Chandigarh. He will be awarded the International Master Title in the next Fide (World Chess Federation) congress meeting.
Dr. Vipnesh Bhardwaj, Hony. Secretary and Naveen Bansal Vice President of CCA congratulated Himal Gusain on his wonderful performance to complete all the requirement to become 1st International Master from Chandigarh and also taken first step by getting Grandmaster Norm towards becoming a future Grandmaster of India from Chandigarh.
Indians GM Sengupta Deep (16th), IM Swayans Mishra (33rd), GM Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan (joint 34th), GM Venkatesth MR (62nd) also competed in the tournament.