Paravyan & Tan Zhongyi win 2020 Gibraltar Masters

21-year-old Russian Grandmaster David Paravyan is the surprise winner of the 2020 Gibraltar Masters after defeating Andrey Esipenko and Wang Hao in tiebreaks. Seven players had tied for first place on 7.5/10 but only four could battle it out for the £30,000 top prize, with Mustafa Yilmaz, David Navara and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave all missing out – in MVL’s case by a single performance rating point! China’s Tan Zhongyi took the women’s top prize of £20,000 after beating French Champion Maxime Lagarde to reach 7/10.

21 players went into the final round of the 2020 Gibraltar Masters with a chance of first place, but it could all have been so different. In the penultimate round former World Junior Champion Parham Maghsoodloo sacrificed his queen for a second day in a row, but this time all it earned him was a lost position against 17-year-old Russian Grandmaster Andrey Esipenko. If Andrey had converted his advantage he’d have gone into the final round with a half-point lead, and only Wang Hao, David Paravyan and Mustafa Yilmaz would still have been able to catch him.