Raahul Wins National Amateur In Mumbai

Raahul Wins National Amateur In Mumbai
By Arvind Aaron

Second seed V.S. Raahul of Tamil Nadu won the 5th SBI Life National Amateur Chess Championship that concluded at Mumbai on November 11, 2016.

In the final round, Raahul, 1997-born defeated the top seed Ameya Audi of Goa with the white pieces to emerge from a three-way shared lead to win by a clear margin.

Raahul suffered a second round reversal to Raahil and won nine games and drew Omkar Kadam (Mah) on course to the title with 9.5/11. He gains 26.8 Elo from this event and also importantly qualifies to represent India in the World Amateur Championship.

This event is held once a year and is for players rated 2300 and below. This 255-player event was organised by the Indian Chess School of Praful Zaveri. International Arbiter I.G. Parmar (Guj) was the chief arbiter.

This event ran from Nov 5-11, 2016 at the Thakur College of Science and Commerce in Kandivali (East) in Mumbai.

Final placings: 1 V.S. Raahul (TN) 9.5/11; 2-3. Y.V.K. Chakravarthy (AP), Omkar Kadav (Mah) 9 each; 4 Aditya Mittal (Mah) 8.5; 5-10. Raahil Mullik (Mah), Devansh Ratti (Mah), Ameya Audi (Goa), R Udadhyay (Mah), Vedant Panesar (Mah), Jeet Shah (Mah) and others 8 each…255 players.