Shahil, Savitha Win Under-9 Titles

Shahil, Savitha Win Under-9 Titles – By Arvind aaron

Shahil Dey of Assam and B Savitha Shri of Tamil Nadu emerged champions on tie-break in the National Under-9 Chess Championship that concluded at C.T. Public School in Jalandhar, Punjab on August 30, 2016.

Third seed Shahil Dey was caught by second seed Dev Shah in the points tally after the final round but the Assam player had the better tie-break score. Both remained undefeated on 9.5/11.

Top seed Bharath Subramaniyam was defeated by the next two seeds and he additionally shed a draw to Tamil Nadu team-mate Ilamparthi to take the third place on 8.5 points.

Shahil Dey shot into prominence when he became the first player from Assam ever to win a National (Under-7) title in Sep 2014. Now, two years down the line, he was won the Under-9 title.

The girls’ section was also closely fought. Here, top seed Savitha Shri (TN) and eleventh seed Sahithi Varshini (AP) tied for first place remaining unbeaten with ten points. Second seed Prathivya Gupta of Delhi finished third after suffering a shock defeat to fifth seed Sinthia Sarkar (WB).

Jalandhar was the venue for this event that ran from August 21-31, 2016. The World Under-10 championship runs on these very same days of Aug 21-31 of 2017 at Brasilia, Brazil The top finishers would represent India in the Asian and World Under-10 Chess Championships of 2017.

This is the fourth time that Jalandhar hosted a National Championship. Jalandhar had previously hosted these three Nationals: National Women 1986, National Junior 1998 and the National Challenger of 2002.

The event was organised by the Jalandhar Chess Association. IA Rajinder Sharma was the tournament director and IA Dharmendra Kumar was the chief arbiter.

Final placings:

Open 1-2. Shahil Dey (Asm), Dev Shah (Mah) 9.5/11; 3-5. Bharath Subramaniyam H (TN), Suresh Harsh (TN), Subham Patnaik (Odi) 8.5 each; 6-10. Adi Jain (Guj), Tanmay Jain (Pun), S Rohit (TN), A.R. Ilamparthi (TN), Thrish Karthik (TN) 8 each…157 players.

Girls: 1-2. B Savitha Shri (TN), M Sahithi Varshini (AP) 10/11 each; 3 Prathivya Gupta (Del) 9; 4-6. Riddhi R Patel (Guj), N Yashavishree (TN), R Tejaswi (TN) 8 each; 7-10. M.S. Harshavardhini (Pon), Sinthia Sarkar (WB), K Sindhusree (TN), Anishka Vikram (Del) 7.5 each…101 players.