Former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta played out a quick draw with Ni Hua of China to win the bronze medal in the 9th Asian Continental Chess Championship that concluded.
Ni Hua scored seven points in all and won the gold medal in the $50,000 tournament that featured the cream of players from across Asia.
The silver went to local star Wesley So of Philippines who scored 6.5 points with a better tiebreak score than Abhijeet.
It was a four way tie for the second spot and Zhao Jianchao of China and Le Quang Liem of Vietnam were the other two who qualified to the next World Cup to be held in 2011.
Abhijeet, who had lost the second game, came back strongly mid-way through the tournament and didn’t lose focus after that.
“It was an ordinary start but I always thought that it was still possible to catch up and somehow I managed to remain focussed throughout.
“After winning a couple of games I was always close to the leaders and the victory against G N Gopal was probably the decisive factor in my overall finish,” said Abhijeet who is a Bharat Petroleum employee.
{{/usCountry}}“After winning a couple of games I was always close to the leaders and the victory against G N Gopal was probably the decisive factor in my overall finish,” said Abhijeet who is a Bharat Petroleum employee.
{{/usCountry}}In the final game, Abhijeet repeated a known drawing line with white pieces against the Berlin defense of Ni Hua. Abhijeet’s foresight in judging possible results proved right in the end but he was assisted by Yu Yangyi who misplayed from a winning position against Krishnan Sasikiran.
Krishnan Sasikiran and P Harikrishna will have to find another way to play in the next world cup as both of them finished with an identical score of 5.5 points.