GM Aravindh wins Indian Senior National Championship

Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram added yet another feather to his cap after winning the historic Indian Senior National Championship crown which concluded in Jammu today.

This 20-lakh prize money championship was organized by All Jammu and Kashmir chess association under the aegis of All India chess federation. A total of 162 players from 27 states and 8 special units including Air India, Railways, Defence, Petroleum sports promotion board, LIC etc participated in this event.

The 19-year-old, who had finished runners up in the last two editions of the championship, needed a draw in the final round to grab the crown. And he kept things simple to sign the peace treaty after 35 moves to finish with 10 points which included seven wins and six draws.

Aravindh had jumped into sole lead ahead of the final round by beating GM Murali Karthikeyan and was always aware that a draw was enough for him to be crowned national champion.

GM Vaibhav Suri, whose best chance to upstage Aravindh was to win his final round against Srijit Paul and hope that the Chennai lad lost his match to IM CRG Krishna, ended up losing in 34 moves as he made mistakes while pushing for one full point.

The result helped Krishna finish second on better tie break score in a three-way tie for the second spot.

Sh. Naveen Kumar Choudhary, IAS, Principal Secretary Finance was the chief on the occasion who distributed the cash prizes of Rs.20 Lacs among the winners in presence of Mr. Talat Parvez, Excise commissioner and other guests including chief accountant officer USBRL project , G.S.Hira, Northern Railway, J&K and Divisional sports officer Jammu Ravi Singh. Players achieved Norms on the conclusion of 13 rounds namely G.A.Stany Grand Master norm, Srijit Paul, Navalgund Niranjan, Ritviz Parab, Harshvardhan IM norms.

Mr. Varun Kumar, Kirti Sharma, Anil Kotwal and Mrs. Bindu Pathania got International arbiters norms from this event.

Final Ranking (Main Prize Winners)