Chennai, Nov 11 (IANS): With a late surge that involved winning the last two classical rounds, Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram was on Monday crowned champion of the Chennai Grand Masters 2024 while GM V. Pranav remained unbeaten throughout to claim the title in the Challengers category at the Anna Centenary Library here on Monday.

With the Masters category witnessing a three-way tie for the top spot, Chithambaram defeated GM Levon Aronian in the first blitz play-off and then held his nerve to draw the second with black pieces to clinch the second edition of the competition.

Earlier, Chithambaram had catapulted himself into title contention by registering his second successive win in the competition while overnight joint leaders GM Arjun Erigaisi and Levon Aronian were held to a draw.

Aravindh Chithambaram, who had ended Arjun’s unbeaten run in the earlier round, dominated the final round game against GM Parham Maghsoodloo with black pieces. He opted for the Queen’s Gambit Declined in the English Opening and took control of the board in the middle-game after Parham traded the queens in the 24th move. He then drove home the advantage in a knight-pawn ending and forced a three-way tie for the top spot.

On the other boards, Aronian settled for a quick draw against GM Amin Tabatabaei and Erigaisi failed to breach the defense of GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 38 moves and shared the point.

With Chithambaram topping the table with a superior tie-break score, Aronian and Erigaisi faced off in the two-game blitz play-off and both the players managed to win the game with black pieces to force a sudden death. Aronian then bid 6.40 minutes to play black and held Erigaisi to a draw to set up the final against Chithambaram.

In the title clash, Chithambaram pounced on a late error from Aronian to win a rook-pawn end game with white in the first blitz game. The Indian then held on with black to grab the title. Since three players were tied on 4.5 points after seven classical rounds, all three will take home a cash prize of Rs 11 lakh each.

In the Challengers category, Pranav needed just a draw against GM Luke Mendonca while the latter had to find a way to win against the Indian GM to clinch the crown.

Playing white, Pranav opted for the King Pawn opening with Mendonca responding with Sicilian Defense. The Indian played a solid game and did not allow his opponent any opportunities to control the board and signed a truce after 41 moves to take home the title in the Challengers section and a prize purse of Rs 6 lakh.

Pranav, who ended the competition with four wins and three draws, will now also get a direct entry in the Masters category next year.

In the day’s other matches, GM Murali Karthikeyan defeated GM R. Vaishali while GM Abhimanyu Puranik played out a draw against GM Raunak Sadhwani. GM D. Harika tried her best to eke out her first win of the tournament but had to settle for a draw against GM M. Pranesh.