Abhijeet Gupta wins Indian Championship

Abhijeet Gupta claims his maiden National title
AURANGABAD, October 21, 2011

Former World junior champion Abhijeet Gupta drew with top seed and defending champion Parimarjan Negi in 41 moves to claim his maiden National chess title at the MIT campus, here on Friday.

Abhijeet, seeded two and a former National junior champion, tallied 9.5 points from 13 rounds to take the coveted title following a flawless display.

In the final round, he forced a draw with the outgoing champion after perpetual checks.

Deepan finishes second

Close contender Deepan Chakkravarthy settled for the second spot with nine points following a 39-move deadlock with young Vidit Gujarathi.

The title for Abhijeet not only meant a place in the National team for the next one year but also gave him a World Cup berth.

Besides Abhijeet and Deepan, others who made it to the elite top-six bracket are S.P. Sethuraman, M.R. Venkatesh, Vidit and last year’s runner-up G.N. Gopal.

In fact, in the final round, Venkatesh was the only winner on the top 10 boards at the expense of S. Arun Prasad in 41 moves.

The results:

13th and final round: Abhijeet Gupta (9.5) drew with Parimarjan Negi (7.5); Vidit Gujarathi (8.5) drew with Deepan Chakravarthy (8.5); Shyam Nikhil (8) drew with S. P. Sethuraman (8.5); Abhijit Kunte (8) drew with Deep Sengupta (8); S. Arun Prasad (7.5) lost to M. R. Venkatesh (8.5); B. Adhiban (7.5) drew with G. N. Gopal (8); S. Kidambi (7.5) drew with Tejas Bakre (7.5); Shyam Sundar (7) drew with Pravin Thipsay (7.5); Aswin Jayaram (7) drew with Padmini Rout (7); S. Satyapragyan (7) drew with Neelotpal Das (7); Vikramaditya Kulkarni (7.5) bt Sriram Jha (7.5).

B.T. Murali Krishnan (7) drew with G. Akash (7); P. Karthikeyan (6.5) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu (6.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (6.5) bt Shashikant Kutwal (5.5); R. R. Laxman (6) drew with Suvrajit Saha (6); Diptayan Ghosh (5.5) lost to Swapnil Dhopade (6.5); Girish Koushik (6.5) bt K. Ratnakaran (5.5); Himanshu Sharma (5.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy (6);

Aditya Udeshi (4) lost to C.R.G. Krishna (6); Soumya Swaminathan (4.5) drew with Dinesh Sharma (5.5); N. Srinath (4.5) drew with Swati Ghate (4.5); Arjun Tiwari (4.5) drew with Varugeese Koshy (5); S. Ravi Teja (4.5) bt Anup Deshmukh (4.5); Rahul Sangma (4.5) drew with P. Konguvel (5).

Standings: Top 10: 1. Abhijeet Gupta, 2. Deepan Chakkravarthy, 3. S.P. Sethuraman, 4. M.R. Venkatesh, 5. Vidit Gujarathi, 6. G.N. Gopal, 7. Shyam Nikhil, 8. Abhijit Kunte, 9. Deep Sengupta, 10. Tejas Bakre.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com