Grandmaster Sivuk Vitaly who is a familiar face in Malaysia now, having won both the Penang Open and Johor Open in past years, now is the champion for the Malaysian Open 2023.
Four players tied for first place with 7 out of 9 points, but Sweden’s incumbent champion triumphed due to a better Buchholz tie break.
The FIDE Aid Package funded the 18th Malaysian Chess Festival, which took place in Kuala Lumpur from August 25 to September 3. The Malaysian Open Championship, a nine-round Swiss tournament with classical time control that drew 139 participants (nine grandmasters), was one of the competitions on the festival schedule.
The competition was tense and came down to a neck to neck photo finish. Going into the final ninth round, Grandmaster Mitrabha Guha of India was a half-point ahead of Sivuk, while a large group of players trailed the leader by a full point. Guha simply needed a draw to be crowned Champion.
In the crucial final round, Guha was defeated by his countryman, Deepan Chakkravarthy, and allowed three players to tie with the same points. Only 2.5 Buchholz points separated the winner (Sivuk) and runner-up (Guha), with talented Indonesian junior Aditya Bagus Arfan (Indonesia) finishing third and Deepan Chakkravarthy finishing fourth.
With 6.5 out of 9, a diverse bunch of players finished fifth.
The Malaysian Open is part of the 9 events that makes up the Malaysian Chess Festival 2023.