Carlsen wins Qatar Masters

                                                 

World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway won the Qatar Masters Open chess tournament, billed as the strongest Open in history, here on Tuesday. It was on a tie-breaker though that he won the title.

The top seed had finished with seven points, the same as Yu Yangyi of China, seeded 11th. He drew his 10th and final round encounter with former World champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, while Yu defeated Wesley So of the United States.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly was the best-placed Indian, at 10th. It was an impressive show by the Kolkatan, who had begun as the 30th seed; he scored six points, same as compatriot P. Harikrishna. The ninth seed finished 11th.

S.P. Sethuraman was another Indian to score six points; he took the 17th place, though he was seeded only 37th.

The tournament featured several top players of the world, including three World champions (Carlsen, Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov). There were four women’s World champions as well — Hou Yifan, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Antaoneta Stefanov and Anna Ushenina.

The standings: 1-2. Magnus Carlsen (Nor), Yu Yangyi (Chn); 3-7. Vladimir Kramnik (Rus), Sergey Karjakin (Rus), Sanan Sjugirov (Rus), Ni Hua (Chn), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) 6.5; 8-17. Anish Giri (Ned), Xu Yinglun (Chn), Surya Shekhar Ganguly (Ind), P. Harikrishna (Ind), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr), Vladimir Akopian (Arm), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol), Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Vie), Nikita Vitiugov (Rus), S.P. Sethuraman (Ind) 6.