Armenia Eagles Win PRO Chess League Eastern Division
The Armenia Eagles came back in the final round to split their match with the Mumbai Movers 8-8. Thanks to scoring more game points in the regular season, the Eagles had draw odds and advance to the semifinals! They will be one of four teams taking the trip to San Francisco for finals weekend on April 7-8.
The Movers initially got off to a good, buoyed by an excellent 3/3 start from recent Reykjavik Open winner, GM Baskaran Adhiban. Here is a nice game he won against Eagles board one, GM Hrant Melkumyan.
GM Adhiban under-performed in this year's Tata Steel, but he is in shining form now. | Photo Maria Emelianova, Chess.com
With a 6.5-5.5 lead, the Movers seemed to out-think themselves. GM Santosh Vidit Gujrathi took a quick draw against Melkumyan, presumably following pre-match strategy, but having conceded a half-point from a board on which they both had White and a rating advantage, the Movers were under pressure in their final three games.
In fact, it was once again the Eagles' star board four, CM Artak Manukyan, who delivered the goods as he scored a quick and decisive victory over IM Raunak Sadhwani by advancing all of his pawns to steamroll Black. At this point, the Movers had no advantage on the remaining two boards, and the Eagles sealed up the match draw that was all they needed.
Despite being rated under 2200, Manukyan has performed at a 2375 clip over 48(!) games. No wonder the Eagles are headed to San Francisco!
2018 PRO Chess League | Eastern Division Championship | Armenia Eagles vs Mumbai Movers
| Eagles | Movers | Vidit Gujrathi | B. Adhiban | Eesha Karavade | Raunak Sadhwani | 8 |
| Hrant Melkumyan | 2.5 | |||||
| Zaven Andriasyan | 2.5 | |||||
| Karen Grigoryan | 1.5 | |||||
| Artak Manukyan | 1.5 | |||||
| 8 | 2.5 | 3.5 | 1 | 1 | ||
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