Midilesh, Anagha Win Under-7 Titles

Midilesh, Anagha Win Under-7 Titles
By Arvind Aaron

M.S. Midilesh of Tamil Nadu and K.G.R. Anagha of Karnataka won the National Under-7 Chess Championship at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Tuesday.

Midilesh of Chennai won the Open section by a one point margin while Anagha won the Girls section on tie-break. Priansh Das finished second losing to Nanal in the final round on the top board. Midilesh who only needed a draw to win, won the final round too. Ayush beat Arnav Muralidhar to finish third.

Karnataka players dominated the podium and took away most of the top prizes. International Arbiter Indulal G Parmar was the chief arbiter.

Chief Guest  Rtn Natarajan Nagoji distributed the cash prizes totalling Rs.150,000 and the medals and trophies. The guest of honour was D.V. Sundar, Vice President, FIDE and V Hariharan, Honorary Secretary, All India Chess Federation.

The winners have qualified to represent the country in the World Under-8 Championship in 2016.

Final placings (in tie-break order):

Open: 1 M.S. Midilesh (TN) 10/11, 2-4. Priansh Das (Odi), Ayush Yajaman (Kar), Nanal Arnav (Mah) 9 each, 5 Ananth Ramdas (TN), 6-12. Arnav Muralidhar (Kar), Sairaj Vernekar (Goa), Kevin J Porus (Ker), A.R. Ilamparthi (TN), Namish Sharma (Del), Sriansh Das (Odi), Swapneel Gupta (WB) 8 each.

Girls: 1-2. K.G.R. Anagha (Kar), Yashita Rout (Odi) 9/11 each, 3 Swetha Valety (Kar) 8.5, 4-8. Rajanya Datta (WB), Vaishnavi Prakash (UP), A.N. Shefali (Kar), Anupam Sreekumar (Ker), Vaishnavi R Rao (Kar) 8 each; 9-12. R Mridulashree (TN), B Sruthi Naya (TN), Saee Patil (Mah), Dukshayano Chavan (Mah) 7.5 each.