Kolkata: It’s a case of all’s well that ends well for Deep Sengupta. The Kolkata-based Grandmaster, who was once uncertain whether he could make it to Warsaw in time to take part in the Najdorf Memorial chess tournament, eventually ended up winning the title on Wednesday.
Sengupta’s connecting flight from Abu Dhabi to Paris got delayed by almost 11 hours thereby making it impossible for him to catch his connecting flight to Warsaw.After much persuasion and dilly-dallying, Sengupta managed to get a seat in a late-night flight to Athens from where he booked himself to Warsaw purchasing a high-priced ticket in another airlines. Sengupta, who finally landed at Warsaw the night before the tournament kicked-off, got a winning start which helped him to settle down.
The 36-year-old Kolkata boy had an unbeaten run winning six and drawing three in the nine-round tournament. Having won this tournament last year too, Sengupta prevailed in the tie-breaker, after finishing on 7.5 points, same as GM Eduardas Rosentalis of Lithuania.
“It’s very satisfying after the way I managed to reach the venue. It was a harrowing experience and I almost lost hope of making it to Poland,” Sengupta told TOI from Warsaw on Thursday. “A good start eased my nerves as I maintained the lead throughout till the last round when I drew and Rosentalis won for our scores to be tied,” the 2491-rated player stated.
The former World youth chess champion (U-12) Sengupta described his fifth-round win against Polish GM Michał Krasenkow as the most satisfying. “I felt that I played a perfect game against an experienced player,” he said.
Gaining some 17 Elo rating points from this tournament, Sengupta now travels to Denmark for his next tournament.