Debashis Das Wins National Challengers

Debashis Das Wins National Challengers

By Arvind Aaron

World Under-18 bronze medal winner Debashis Das of Cuttack won the 50th National Challengers that concluded at Tirupati in south Andhra Pradesh on May 29.

Third seed, Debashis remained undefeated after starting with five victories. He is gaining over 13 Elo from this contest. Big made, Debashis is a hard working player whose works with Bulgarian Grand Master Kiril Georgiev.

You might be surprised that Garry Kasparov took notice of Debashis Das' game from the Parsvnath Open at Delhi this year and analysed it in Chess Informant 113 spreading five pages.

Diptayan Ghosh of Kolkata started as the sixth seed and finished second gaining over five Elo. Like Debashis, he too remained undefeated. His trainer Shankar Roy had passed away earlier in May.

The find of the event was Tamil Nadu's G. Akash of Chennai who was leading for most of the event. At the tail of this event he was beaten by Abhilash Reddy (round 11) and Sagar Shah in the final round (round 13). Nevertheless, Akash qualified, finished third starting as seed 37. He gained 46 Elo.

International Arbiter Gopakumar was the chief arbiter and the event went on smoothly. It was organised by the Chitoor District Chess Association at Tirupati from May 18-28.

The top 30 players qualify from this event to the National Premier. It is the second most important event in India after the National Premier. Many youngsters qualified for the first time. The previous six and the Grand Masters continue to be seeded for the National Premier.

Final placings (top 30 qualify): 1 IM Debashis Das 10/13; 2-4. FM Diptayan Ghosh, G. Akash, Sagar Shah 9.5 each; 5-9. M.L. Abhilash Reddy, IM B.T. Muralikrishnan, Bitan Banerjee, S.L. Narayanan, IM P.D.S. Girinath 9 each; 10-37. IM Saptarshi Roy, Shashikant Kutwal, N. Sanjay, Sohan Phadke, Ram S Krishnan, IM D.K. Sharma, IM Swayams Mishra, IM P. Karthikeyan, IM S. Satyapragyan, Anurag Mhamal, Arvind Shastry, IM Suvrajit Saha, FM V.A.V. Rajesh, R. Arun Karthik, IM Rahul Shetty, C.R.G. Krishna, IM Atanu Lahiri, K. Praneeth Surya, S. Ravi Teja, IM C. Praveenkumar, Pratik Patil (so far qualified; rest did not qualify), Arindam Mukherjee, FM Sayantan Das, IM D.P. Singh, Syed Anwar Shazuli, IM Rahul Sangma, IM P. Konguvel, Karthikeyan Murali 8.5 points....225 players.