Four times national women champion International Master Padmini Rout of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board added one more national women title to her illustrious career after a gap of six years as she clinched the 49th National Women Chess Championship at Ahmedabad on Monday.
In the eleventh and final round, second seed Padmini defeated defending champion and top seed Divya Deshmukh of Maharashtra to secure the title and pocketed a cash prize of Rs. 700000/-. Padmini’s Petroleum teammate and Asian Women Runner-Up Women Grandmaster May Ann Gomes finished second with 8.5 points while West Bengal’s Arpita Mukherjee finished at third with 8.5 points after beating former champion Bhakti Kulkarni of Goa. Mary and Arpita got richer by Rs. 5.5 lakh and Rs. 4.5 lakh respectively.
Treasurer of All India Chess Federation Shri Naresh Sharma and Vice President of AICF Shri Bhavesh Patel gave away the trophies and cash prizes to the winners.