Young Indian Grandmaster Leon Luke Mendonca emerged victorious within the 2nd Kumania GM chess match in Hungary, with a rating of 6.5 factors from 9 rounds.
The 15-year-old Goa participant, who grew to become India’s 67th Grandmaster in December final, remained unbeaten and completed with 4 wins and 5 attracts within the match which concluded on Thursday.
“Feeling happy to retain the title despite playing the world school online tournament side by side,” Mendonca mentioned, including that it was a powerful occasion with 5 different younger Grandmasters within the fray.
Mendonca, with an ELO ranking of 2532, completed equal on factors with Slovakia’s Milan Pacher however took the highest place on the idea of a greater tie-break rating.
He began the match with a draw earlier than notching up 4 consecutive victories after which 4 straight attracts to complete with 6.5 factors.
The Indian scored a high-quality victory in spherical 2 towards IM Peter Lizak after the latter made a positional error earlier than happening to beat GM Gergely Kantor comfortably within the third spherical.
In the penultimate spherical, Mendonca fought properly towards GM Gergely Aczel and secured a attract 95 strikes with some good defending within the end-game.
He shared factors in his ultimate spherical recreation towards American Alexander Velikanov.
He had final month received the Vezerkepzo IM Round-Robin tourney.
The Indian teenager had additionally received the primary version of Kumania Championship in November 2020.