Kumar Gaurav, Vaishali Win Junior Titles

Kumar Gaurav, Vaishali Win Junior Titles
By Arvind Aaron

Kumar Gaurav of Bihar started as seed No.42 and won the 46th Indian Junior Chess Championship that concluded at Hotel Shelton, Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh on October 16, 2016.

Top seed, Woman International Master R Vaishali of Tamil Nadu won the Girls’ section by a wide margin of 1.5 points. She scored 9.5/11 and gained just 2.8 Elo points. She too suffered a third round jolt, losing to team mate C.M.N. Sunyuktha. Kumar Gaurav also lost in the third round to Raunak Sadhwani.

Kumar Gaurav, born 2002 lost to Raunak Sadhwani (Mah) in the third and S Prasannaa (TN) in the final round. He drew top seed M.N. Shaikh (Mah) and beat IMs Sayanthan Das (WB), N Krishna Teja (AP) to gain 224 Elo points from a single event!

Kumar Gaurav’s sensational last round defeat to Prasannaa allowed M.N. Shaikh to catch up on points at 8.5/11. However, Kumar Gaurav had the higher tie-break score to win the 130-player contest.

Shaikh (rating change -6) and Tarini Goyal (rating change: -36) of Chandigarh remained undefeated in the entire event. In the 75-player girls event, all players suffered atleast one defeat.

International Arbiter R Srivatsan was the chief arbiter. The event was organised by Ascent Sports Foundation, APCA, and the East Godavari District Chess Association.

Final placings (tie-break order):

Open: 1-2. Kumar Gaurav (Bih), M.N. Shaikh (Mah) 8.5/11; 3-8. Raunak Sadhwani (Mah), Muthaiah Al (TN), IM Krishna N Teja (AP), S Prasannaa (TN), FM Rajdeep Sarkar (WB), WFM Tarini Goyal (Chd) 8 each; 9-10. IM Sayanthan Das (WB), Sai Agni Jeevitesh (Tel) and others 7.5 each.

Girls: 1 WIM R Vaishali (TN) 9.5/11; 2-4. WFM Bidhar Rutumbara (Odi), WFM Arpita Mukherjee (WB), WFM G Lasya (AP) 8 each; 5-7. C.H. Meghna (Ker), D Jishitha (AP), C.M.N. Sunyuktha (TN) 7.5 each; 8-10. Deodhar Vrushali (Mah), Seeya Thakare (Mah), WIM Sakshi Chitlange (Mah) and others 7 each.