International Master (2008); Grandmaster (2012); Commonwealth Junior Champion (2010); Indian U19 Champion (2008 & 2010), Commonwealth Champion (2012).
Master Norms
<International Master> Babu M.R. Lalith gained his IM title through direct award by placing equal first at the Asian Junior Championship in 2008, which finished on 14 December 2008. (1) He was aged 15 years 11 months 9 days at the time.
<Grandmaster Norms> He gained his GM norms through his results at the 13th International Open de Balaguer in 2008, the Chennai Open (2010) and at the Hastings (2011/12). (2) The last mentioned finished on 5 January 2012, and he gained his GM title with effect from that date as he had previously reached a rating of 2500. He was aged 19 years exactly when he became a GM.
Championships
<Youth> Lalith was equal first alongside Sai Srinivas Dasari, Baskaran Adhiban and R Premnath at the National U17 Championship in January 2007. Won the National U19 Championship in 2008 held in Tadepalligudem, West Godawari District in the Indian state of Andra Pradesh. He also won the National U19 Championship in 2010 played at Puri, Odisha, India.
<Junior> He was equal third at the Asian Junior Championship in 2007 and equal first alongside Jayaram Ashwin (second on tiebreak) at the Asian Junior Chess Championship in 2008. 5th place at the Commonwealth Championship and the top placed Junior (U20) (ahead of GM Parimarjan Negi) and therefore Commonwealth U20 Champion 2010. He was second behind Somak Palit at the 18th National U25 Championship in 2009 in India. He placed equal fourth at the Asian Junior Championship held in India in 2010.
<National> Lalith was equal fifth at the Indian National Premier Championship in December 2010, a point behind the winner Parimarjan Negi.
<Regional and Continental> He was equal first at the Commonwealth Championship in 2012, and although he was second on tiebreak, he was the new Commonwealth Champion for 2012 because of his eligibility for the title as a resident of a Commonwealth country (former British Empire country). He was equal third (fifth on tiebreak) at the Commonwealth Championship in 2014, and equal second (3rd on tiebreak) at the Commonwealth Championship 2015. (3) Lalith scored 6/9 and placed 7th at the Asian Continental Champion held in Chennai in August 2015, thereby qualifying for the World Cup 2015 as two of the leaders had previously qualified.
<World> Lalith's results at the Asian Continental Championship (2015) qualified him to play in the World Cup (2015) where he lost to Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek in the first round, bowing out of the tournament.
Tournament
<2004-2009> Lalith was second behind Sai Srinivas Dasari at the 2 Round Robin event in Vijayawada in August 2004. He was equal fourth at the 13th Balaguer International Open in 2008 a point behind the winner behind Vladimir Olegovich Baklan and half a point behind joint runners-up Lazaro Bruzon Batista and Fidel Corrales Jimenez. He was equal sixth, half a point from the lead, at the 1st Gurgaon International Open Chess Tournament in India in January 2009. He was the outright winner with 7.5/9 ahead of Stanislav Savchenko at the Leiden Tournament in the Netherlands in 2009.
<2010-2012> One of his best results was equal second with 7/9 at the Chennai International GM Tournament in January 2010, half a point behind Maxim Vladimirovich Turov and alongside Siddharth Ravichandran and Ziaur Rahman. He was equal first (5th on tiebreak) at the Vizag GM Open 2011. In 2012, he was equal second with 9/11, half a point behind Oliver Barbosa at the huge Parsvnath International Open that was staged in Delhi in January. In July 2012, Lalith was equal third behind David Howell and Negi with 6.5/9 at the 6th Leiden tournament. The following month he was equal first (2nd on tiebreak behind Pedro Alejandro Jimenez Fraga) with 7.5/9 at the 38th Badalona Open in Spain and in October 2012, equal fourth with 8/11 at the Vizag International Open, half a point behind the joint leaders Adhiban, Enamul Hossain and Davit Gevorgi Petrosian. In December 2012, he was equal first with 9.5/11 at the Commonwealth Championship in Chennai, but second on tiebreak to Sergei Tiviakov.
<2013-2014> 2013 saw some successes, including equal fifth at the Delhi Open in January; winning the Chennai Open ahead of Lu Shanglei on tiebreak; equal third at the Czech Open 2013, half a point behind Mikhailo Oleksienko and Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu In August he was equal first at the HZ Tournament in the Netherlands alongside Erwin L'Ami, Quinten Ducarmon and Michal Vladimirovich Krasenkow. His final tournament in 2013 was at the National Premier Open in Maharashtra where he placed outright third behind Krishnan Sasikiran and Adhiban, respectively. In March of 2014, he was equal first in a field of 400 alongside Oliver Barbosa the 19th International Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament in Kolkata. Two months later in May he was equal first alongside nine other players at the National Challengers Championship.
<2015> The competitive year started in January for Lalith at the 17th Ruegenwalder North West Cup Group A in Germany when he finished equal second behind Alexandre Danin.
Team Events (4)
Won team bronze playing reserve for India at the Chess Olympiad (2014) played in Tromsø. His personal contribution to this historic result for India was to win two and draw one game. He also played reserve for India at the Asian Team Championship in 2014 and won team silver and individual bronze.
Lalith also played for India in the India-China summit match (won by China) in 2015 and in the Indian league from 2013.
Rating History
Lalith's initial rating was 2089 in January 2004. His highest rating to date was 2594 in April 2014.
References and Sources
(1) http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?...; (2) http://ratings.fide.com/title_appli...; (3) http://chess-results.com/tnr178520....; (4) http://www.olimpbase.org/players/ue...
Wikipedia article: Babu M.R. Lalith; Photo: http://www.bidmonfa.com/lalith_babu...
Kibitzing
