in the Asian Games and Spanish league (including a win over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave) along with a solid performance in the Chess Olympiad helped recover his rating back to 2667 after a steady fall between April 2009 (2686) and July 2010 (2645). In January 2011, he came ninth on tiebreak scoring 7/10 at Gibraltar then sixth on tiebreak with 6.5/9 at Cappelle-la-Grande. May 2011 he won the Asian Chess Championship after tying with Yu Yangyi and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 6.5/9, shared second place on 7/9 with Robert Hess and Alejandro Ramirez at the Chicago Open half a point behind Timur Gareev. Pentala's form dipped at the New York International scoring only 4.5/9 for shared 25th place, but shared third at the World Open scoring 6.5/9. He struggled at the World Team Championships competing against almost exclusively 2700 rated players, scoring 3.5/9 and was eliminated from the Chess World Cup in the second round 1.5-0.5 by Dmitry Jakovenko. Pentala started 2012 in style winning the Group B of Tata Steel, scoring 9/13, half a point ahead of Alexander Motylev and Lazaro Bruzon, earning himself a place in the 2013 Group A followed up with victory at the Cappelle-la-Grande Open on tiebreaks with 7/9. In July, he was third on tiebreaks at the Benasque Open scoring 8/10 and fifth on tiebreaks at the Biel Master event with 7.5/11. Pentala rounded off the year with the 40th Chess Olympiad and league games, ending the year at his highest rating so far with 2698. Making his first appearance in the Tata Steel A group in January 2013, Pentala finished in seventh place with 6.5/13 and breaking 2700 for the first time. Despite a collapse of form at the Capablanca Memorial in which Pentala scored 3/10, losing four games and failing to win and pushing him back under 2700, his form returned in July with a strong performance in the Greek league, winning at the Biel Masters with 8½/11 and tied fifth place at the HZ Open with an unbeaten 7/9. 2014–2016 In January 2014, Pentala finished seventh in the rejigged Tata Steel Masters with 5.5/11 after a last round loss against Boris Gelfand and came 12th on tiebreak scoring 7/10 at Gibraltar soon after. After claiming silver at the Asian Blitz Championship, he played only league games until July when he finished third on tiebreak at Biel. Despite playing for the Indian team at