BY Armstrong Vas
Doha: Asian chess champion Yu Yangyi of China threw the ranking hierarchy of Qatar Masters Open 2014 to the winds to finish on top of the summit here yesterday at the Hotel Crowne Plaza.
The 20-year-old Grandmaster finished ahead of top seed Anish Giri of the Netherlands and former world champion and tournament third seed Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
Yangyi defeated the 39-year-old Russian in the last and ninth round match of the championship to finish with 7.5 points, ahead of Giri and Kramnik, both with seven points.
The 20-year-old Dutchman, whose father was born in Nepal and his mother from Russia, won his last round match against Vladimir Akopian of Russia, after losing his seven and eight round matches to Vladimir Kramnik and Yangyi, to finish second.
Vladimir on the other hand who went into the final round with six consecutive wins under his belt fell flat to Yangyi’s challenge losing yesterday to the Chinese rising star to come third.
“I am happy with my performance and the quality of chess (at the Qatar Master Open 2014),” Yangyi said during the awards ceremony while speaking through an interpreter.
“I wish to thank my sponsors and also wish to congratulate the organisers for a great event.
“I faced some strong opponents in the tournament and happy to win the trophy,” he added.
“Wow. Yangyi Yu just smacked Kramnik around like a rag doll,” wrote one fan on twitter after the ninth round win for the Chinese over the Russian star.
Meanwhile Giri took to twitter to congratulate Yangyi on his win in Doha.
“Won the wild last game in the very exciting @Qatar_Masters ! Taking 2nd place after all, after the sneaky Yu Yangi (congrats)!,” Giri wrote on his @anishgiri twitter handle. The winner collected $25,000 while the second and third place finishers collected a cheques of $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.
Among the women players Grand master Bela Khotenashvili of Georgia finished on top to clinch the cheque of $5,000, while Salem AR Saleh of UAE clinched the top place among the Arab players to get $3,500.
THE PENINSULA
