GM Sivuk Vitaly is 2023 Malaysian Open Champion!

Grandmaster Vitaly Sivuk of Sweden won the 2023 Malaysian Open Championship. 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.

Rk.		Name	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	7	0	49.5	52
2	GM	Mitrabha Guha	7	0	47	50.5
3	FM	Arfan Aditya Bagus	7	0	44.5	48.5
4	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	7	0	44	48
5	GM	Iniyan P	6.5	0	49.5	53
6	GM	Laylo Darwin	6.5	0	48	52
7	IM	Nitin S.	6.5	0	45.5	50
8	IM	Kushagra Mohan	6.5	0	45.5	49.5
9	FM	Poh Yu Tian	6.5	0	45	49.5
10	GM	Nguyen Van Huy	6.5	0	43.5	48
11		Bacojo Mark Jay	6	0	49	52.5
12		Dhiaulhaq Zacky	6	0	48.5	52
13	IM	Garcia Jan Emmanuel	6	0	45.5	49.5
14	IM	Quizon Daniel	6	0	44	48.5
15	IM	Concio Michael Jr.	6	0	44	48
16	IM	Siddharth Jagadeesh	6	0	43.5	47.5
17	IM	Saravana Krishnan P.	6	0	43.5	46.5
18	FM	Arca Christian Gian Karlo	6	0	43.5	46
19		Chen Kailin	6	0	42	46.5
20	IM	Badmatsyrenov Oleg	6	0	41	45