Aravindh Wins Chennai Grand Masters Through Tiebreak
GM Aravindh Chithambaram emerged as the winner of the 2024 Chennai Grand Masters after tying for first place with GMs Levon Aronian and Arjun Erigaisi and defeating Aronian in the final of the tiebreak with a 2-0 score. The format of the three-player tiebreak had Aronian and Arjun play each other first, with Aronian progressing by holding with the black pieces in the armageddon game after the blitz tiebreaker ended in a 1-1 tie.
While Aravindh scored over GM Parham Maghsoodloo, Arjun had an exciting draw with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Aronian had an early draw with GM Amin Tabatabaei.
In the Challengers section, GM Pranav Venkatesh was determined to keep control of the game with the white pieces in view of his half-point lead over his opponent GM Leon Mendonca and thus pocket the title. He did it without much difficulty, even being slightly better in the final position when he agreed to a draw. With this victory, Pranav earns a place to play in the Masters category in the next edition of the tournament.
Final Standings: Challengers
Masters
The day started unexpectedly, as Aronian allowed a repetition of moves and settled for a draw in just 15 moves and under 25 minutes of play. This looked surprising from the tournament point of view, as it was expected of Aronian to fight for the first place by pushing hard in the last round, especially as he had white pieces. What was his thought process?
Appearing on the live commentary after the game, the jovial Aronian explained in his typical way, "The last round is where the mathematics starts! ...I got introduced to poker theory by my friend, (GM) Hrant Melkumyan. It is very important to calculate all the outcomes and understand your probabilities... if the risk outweighs the end. My calculation was, if I win, I win the first prize; if I lose, I could finish fourth, and if I draw, I could play the tiebreak—that's the point. In the worst-case scenario, I could be second."
And he came up with the quip, "After some painful last-round losses when I lost a lot of money, I learned it the hard way!"
After some painful last-round losses when I lost a lot of money, I learned it the hard way!
—Levon Aronian
I asked him afterward if he came to the board with any intention to see if he got a playable position and decide whether to push or not. Aronian said matter of factly, "I was basically trying to force a draw from the start. I calculated before the game that a draw was a good result for me." Brutally frank and professional.
What was the reason for this pragmatic approach? "I already have no chances (with the FIDE Circuit points). Even if I had a one-percent chance that I would be contending for something more, my decision would have been the opposite. Throughout my career, I have won many last-round games." The final sentence revealed the confidence of Aronian, who would always fight if there was a fight worth fighting for.
This gave clear targets for Arjun and Aravindh to fight for a win, as they had chances to finish first with an outright win, and to reach the same point to fight in the tiebreaks, respectively.
This was when the real drama of the last round started.
Arjun Erigaisi is pushing hard for a bounce-back win in the final round in Chennai—and tournament victory and a big increase in his FIDE Circuit lead! https://t.co/Gus5ghfrqM pic.twitter.com/zRkPWIiDzX
— chess24 (@chess24com) November 11, 2024
Arjun's game against Vachier-Lagrave developed into a big tactical fight, which was already guaranteed given the French Grandmaster's love for dynamic positions even with black pieces. But what was even more delightful was the imagination with which Vachier-Lagrave conducted the fight, allowing Arjun to have two queens on the board in the middlegame, and developing an initiative against the white king.
It is not every day that you get to see such a position in a last-round game between two grandmasters above 2700. And what's more, the player with a lone queen against two queens proved his dynamic compensation with his result.
This fantastic fight is our Game Of The Day, annotated by GM Rafael Leitao.
This brilliant fight also meant that Arjun was not going to win the tournament outright, and it fell on Aravindh to win his game to make it a tie for the top three places.
The final round saw a visit from GM R.B. Ramesh, Aravindh's coach, who predicted an interesting fight between Aravindh and Maghsoodloo: "It is always very interesting when you have an opponent like Parham—the game will usually not end in a draw. It is not going to be a one-way street."
Ramesh also made an important observation about Aravindh's strengths as a player, "Aravindh is a very universal player—he is good in attack and his endgame skills are the best among (many) generations of players." This final surprising statement came back to me throughout the day, as Aravindh first defeated Maghsoodloo through a gritty endgame fight.
Thus, Aravindh, Aronian, and Arjun finished identically on 4.5 points each and were listed in that order on the tiebreak (since Aravindh beat Arjun in their individual encounter, while the other games between the leaders were drawn.) Tiebreak matches were conducted, with Aronian and Arjun fighting to decide who would play Aravindh, with a two-game blitz match at the 3+2 time control, and an armageddon tiebreak (if necessary), where the players would bid the time they were willing to get to play Black and only need a draw.
Here's the banter from the Levon-Arjun clash! @Chennai_GM pic.twitter.com/BD5Z3vMQOm
— Chess.com - India (@chesscom_in) November 11, 2024
After losing the first game of the blitz match, Arjun staged a comeback in the second game through an attractive pawn ending, curiously after choosing the French Defense and allowing the exchange variation.
In the armageddon tiebreak, Aronian bid 6.45 minutes against Arjun's 6.58, and successfully held the draw with the black pieces to proceed to the finals against Aravindh.
In the finals, it was Aravindh's endgame skills that again stood him in good stead in the first game.
Though Aravindh suffered a difficult position, he managed to defend it and actually win the resultant endgame in the second tiebreak game, thus managing to win the match and the title through tiebreak.
Here's the winning moment of @pawnof64squares! @Chennai_GM pic.twitter.com/vnGtuA6PhW
— Chess.com - India (@chesscom_in) November 11, 2024
Once again, there were congratulations, and some of them amusing, conscious of the identity of the creator.
told you https://t.co/jM5uui1P6W
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 11, 2024
Aravindh earned 20.59 FIDE Circuit points (sole first place without tiebreaks would be 24.71), Aronian 18.34, and Arjun 17.22. Arjun can use that score to replace the 5.24 points he scored for the Sharjah Masters, so that his overall score increases to 114.77, a 17.85 lead over second-placed GM Fabiano Caruana in the race for the first spot available in the 2026 Candidates Tournament.
Challengers
Pranav played simple chess against Mendonca and held the game to a draw without much trouble, thus winning the title and guaranteeing himself a place in the next year's Masters section.
The Chennai Grand Masters 2024 is India's strongest classical super-tournament of the year. It was an eight-player round-robin that took place from November 5 to 11, with a time control of 90+30. The prize fund is 50 lakhs, which is approximately $60,000.
Previous Coverage
- Round 6: Aravindh Beats Arjun, Tense Last Round Beckons
- Round 5: Aronian Defeats Vachier-Lagrave, Trails Arjun By Half-Point
- Round 4: Arjun Wins Again To Reach 2809.3; Pranav Makes It 4/4
- Round 3: Arjun Becomes 2nd In The World In Live Ratings After Chaotic Win
- Round 2: Mendonca, Pranav Lead Challengers With 2nd Straight Wins
- Round 1: Arjun, Vachier-Lagrave Start With Contrasting Wins
- Chennai Grand Masters 2024
