Sport – Chess
Sriram Jha becomes GM
Chennai: FIDE Zone 3.2 champion Sriram Jha became India’s 21st Grandmaster when he drew with Neelotpal Das of Kolkata to complete his third and final Grandmaster-norm in the 47th National premier chess championship at Mumbai on Wednesday.
The 1976-born Jha has six points from eight games. On course to this norm he defeated two Grandmasters, S. Kidambi and Abhijeet Gupta.
He had made the two earlier norms and this completes his title requirement, said Prof. R. Anantharam, Chief Arbiter.
Good day for Adhiban
Former world under-16 champion B. Adhiban of Chennai completed his first Grandmaster-norm by defeating Grand Master Tejas Bakre of Air India in the eighth round.
Adhiban also leads the 42-player event at the Goregaon Sports Club with 6.5 points from eight rounds.
Adhiban is the 10th seed but is in sole lead and playing at a huge 2684 performance rating.
Third IM norm
Swapnil Dhopade completed his third International Master norm with a draw against Kidambi in the eighth round.
He had completed the first norm at Kolkata in 2008 and second norm at Spain in 2008.
He is the second Vidarbha player after Anup Deshmukh to become an IM.
Important results (round eight): N. Das (PSPB) 5.5 drew with Sriram Jha (LIC) 6.
T. Bakre (AI) 4.5 lost to B. Adhiban (TN) 6.5; S.P. Sethuraman (TN) 5 drew with G.N. Gopal (PSPB) 5.
Swapnil Dhopade (Mah) 5 drew with S. Kidambi (PSPB) 5; R.R. Laxman (Rly) 5 drew with Vidit Gujrathi (Mah) 5. — Arvind Aaron
Source: http://www.hinduonnet.com
Congratulations to Sriram! We played back in 1992 in the WCh-U16 – result was a draw, which makes me now more proud than ever! 😉