Swapnil Dhopade emerges as the Straight champion
By S.PAUL AROKIA RAJ,Chief Arbiter
After war of nerves for 11 days in the orange city of Nagpur the 53rd National Challengers Championship came to an end today with the GM elect and IM Swapnil Dhopade of Railways emerging as straight champion with 10 points.The find of the championship was FIDE Master K.Praneeth Surya of Telengana who stood second with 9.5 points in a eleven way tie.The third place was secured by GM Karthikeyan Muarali of Tamil Nadu. Top 9 players have qualified from this championship for the national premier championship slated for November this year at Tiruvarur, TamilNadu.
Final Standings :
| Standings | Title | Name of the player | Unit |
| 1 | IM | Swapnil S. Dhopade | RLYS |
| 2 | FM | K. Praneeth Surya | TEL |
| 3 | GM | Karthikeyan Murali | TN |
| 4 | GM | Neelotpal Das | PSPB |
| 5 | GM | Venkatesh M.R. | PSPB |
| 6 | GM | Shyam Sundar M. | AAI |
| 7 | IM | Rathnakaran K. | RLYS |
| 8 | IM | Karthikeyan P. | RLYS |
| 9 | GM | Kunte Abhijit | PSPB |
| 10 | IM | Shyaamnikhil P | TN |
| 11 | IM | Das Arghyadip | RLYS |
| 12 | GM | Sengupta Deep | PSPB |
| 13 | IM | Thejkumar M. S. | RLYS |
| 14 | Harsha Bharathakoti | TEL | |
| 15 | IM | Konguvel Ponnuswamy | PSPB |
| 16 | Gusain Himal | CHAN | |
| 17 | Shailesh Dravid | MAH | |
| 18 | GM | Laxman R.R. | RLYS |
| 19 | Sahoo Utkal Ranjan | ODI | |
| 20 | GM | Lalith Babu M.R. | PSPB |
| 21 | IM | Satyapragyan Swayangsu | AI |
| 22 | IM | Rajesh V A V | TN |
| 23 | IM | Nitin S. | RLYS |
| 24 | IM | Das Sayantan | WB |
| IM | Stany G.A. | KAR | |
| 26 | Karthik V. Ap | AP | |
| 27 | IM | Sharma Dinesh K. | LIC |
| 28 | GM | Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi | RLYS |
| 29 | IM | Kulkarni Vikramaditya | RLYS |
| 30 | CM | Aronyak Ghosh | WB |
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