Debashis wins bronze at Asian Youth Chess

Orissa teenager Debashis Das drew his seventh and final round against Yusup Atabayed (Turkmenistan) to win the bronze medal in the under-18 open category of the Asian Youth Chess Championship, which concluded at New Delhi today. He finished with five points, half a point behind UAE Grandmaster AR Saleh Salem and Indian Fide Master P Nikil Shyam. Saleh won the gold, while Shyam settled for silver. Oveall, Debashis won four games, drew two and lost one. Among other three Orissa players, Sankalp Baliarsingh lost to Amin M Tabatabaei (Iran) in the ninth and final round to be placed sixth in the under-8 open section. He scored five points. In under-12 category, Sidhant Mohapatra with four points, occupied the 15th position in the final standings, six places behind his starting rank of nine. He lost to Ayam Akhmetov (Kazakhstan) in the ninth and final round. Under-14 second seed Utkal Ranjan Sahu finished seventh with 5.5 points despite ending his campaign with three wins in a row. He defeated Pouya Idani (Iran) in the ninth and final round. Host India asserted its supremacy in the championship bagging 23 out of 36 medals in six open and equal number of girls’ categories. India’s medals included seven gold, eight silver and eight bronze. Vietnam and Iran secured four medals each, followed by Uzbekistan three, Iran and UAE one each. -------------------- Padmini finishes 29th, Kiran 56th Orissa WIMs Padmini Rout and Kiran Manisha Mohanty finished 29th and 56th respectively among 250 players in the Hogeschool Zeeland International Open Chess Tournament, which culminated at Holland today. World under-14 champion Padmini beat Mark Timmermans in the eighth round and held International Master Matthias Roeder to a creditable draw in the ninth and final round to close her account with six points. Former Women’s National ‘B’ champion Kiran ended with a total of 5.5 points, defeating Guy Bielderman and losing to Indian IM M Shyam Sundar in the last two rounds.