BHUBANESWAR 22-Oct-2013 175
Top Odisha player and defending champion Debashis Das finished fourth with 9.5 points from 13 rounds in the 51st National Challengers (National `B`) Chess Championship, which concluded at Bhopal today. Fifth seed Das, who became the first Grandmaster of the state by completing the 2500 elo rating with a win against Anirudha Deshpande earlier in the eight round, held PSPB Grandmaster Deep Sengupta to a draw in the final round to be placed joint second with six others in the final standings.
Railways` International Master M S Thejkumar emerged champion, piping Tamil Nadu`s Ashwin Jayaram, who settled as runner-up. Buchholz tie-break rule was applied to determine the title winner as the duo tied for the top spot with 10.5 points each.
Debashis Das remained unbeaten in the 11-day championship, winning six games and drawing the remaining seven. He gained nine points to finish with an elo rating of 2506. Top nine finishers of the National Challengers qualified for the National Premier (National ‘A’) Championship, scheduled to be held in Maharashtra from December 16 to 30.
Other six to make the cut are: Akshat Khamparia, K Rathnakaran (both Railways); V Vishnu Prasanna, P Shyam Nikil, Deepan Chakkravarthy (all Tamil Nadu) and G A Stany (AAI). Among six more Odisha players, IM Swayams Mishra (9), WGM Padmini Rout (7.5), FM Rakesh Kumar Jena (7.5), Sradhanjali Jena (5.5), Rajesh Nayak (5) and visually challenge brothers Soundarya Kumar Pradhan (5.5) and Prachurya Kumar Pradhan (5) finished 13th, 65th, 83rd, 203rd, 215th, 207th and 216th respectively.
Odisha IM Swayangsu Satyapragyan, who represents Air India, occupied the 50th position with eight points. Altogether 282 players took part in the championship.
