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Madurai's 22-year old Magesh Chandran Panchanathan who is a student of the University of Texas at Dallas won the UTD Grandmaster Invitational Chess Tournament at Richardso, Texas on December 14 after he outclassed six higher ranked opponents to win by a huge 2.5-point difference.
Magesh scored nine points from the eleven games to win the 12-player event with a resounding final round victory over John Bartholomew. Russian born New York based grandmaster Alexander Goldin and GM Varuzhan Akobian of Armenia who suffered defeats to Magesh earlier finished second with 6.5 points. He also scored over GM Igor Novikov, last year's joint champion.
On title course, Magesh won eight games, lost one and drew two for his second best performance of his career. Earlier in July this year he tied for the first place in the $180,000 World Open at Philadelphia. He made yet another grandmaster norm at Richardson but will become India's twelfth grandmaster after he crosses the 2500 rating mark. He is on 2496 and has to wait until Jan 1, 2006 when FIDE publishes the next rating list.
Magesh is doing his third year Bachelors in Computer Science. He has helped University of Texas win the Pan American Collegiate championship. "My targets are now smaller," he said after reaching the final GM norm. He is now going to work at 50 Elo at one time and look to reach the 2550 Elo mark.
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