Orissa’s rise as a growing power in chess got a further fillip when fourth seed Anwesh Upadhyaya pipped statemate Swayams Mishra to claim the title in the 20th National (under-17) chess title at the South West Institute, here on Wednesday.
Upadhyay and Mishra tied for the title after scoring nine points from 11 rounds. Superior tiebreak score helped overnight leader Upadhyaya take the title. This is the first time when two Orissa boys have tied for a national title, creditably, in a field that had three leading seeds from Tamil Nadu.
In the final round, overnight leader Upadhyaya drew with Andhra’s Mehar Chinna Reddy while seventh seeded Mishra surprised second seed Tamil Nadu’s K. Priyadharshan.
Leading results (11th round):
Open: Anwesh Upadhyaya (9) drew with Mehar Chinna Reddy (7); Bitan Banerjee (7) drew with S. Nitin (8.5); Swayams Mishra (9) bt K. Priyadharshan (6.5); Sameer Kathmale (6.5) lost to G.A. Stany (8); Himal Gusain (6.5) drew with Shyam Nikhil (7); Rakesh Kulkarni (6.5) drew with Biswajit Nayak (6.5); Saurabh Mandal (6) lost to Debashish Dutta (7); N. Lokesh (7) bt Pratik Patil (6); Deepak Katiyar (6.5) bt Rishi Thariani (6).
Girls: J. Saranya (10) drew with Siddhali Shetye (7); Sunyasakta Satpathy (6.5) lost to Bhakti Kulkarni (9); J. Mohana Priya (6.5) drew with Priyanka Kumari (8); Devangi Patankar (6.5) drew with R. Bharathi (7.5); Sonakshi Rathore (6.5) drew with Soukhin Pramanik (6.5); N. Hema Priya (5.5) lost to C.H. Savetha (6.5); G. Amirthavalli (5.5) lost to Shristi Shetty (6.5); A. Akshaya (5.5) lost to Supriya Joshi (6.5); Sonia Deshmukh (5.5) lost to Aparajita Gochchikar (6.5); Surbhi Munot (6) drew with M. Poojakanth (5.5).
Standings (top-10):
Open: 1-2. Anwesh, Swayams (9 points each); 3. Nitin (8.5), 4. Stany (8), 5-9. Lokesh, Mehar, Debashish, Shyam, Bitan (7 each), 10. Sameer (6.5).
Girls: 1. Saranya (10), 2. Bhakti (9), 3. Priyanka (8), 4. Bharathi (7.5), 5. Siddhali (7), 6-10. Devangi, Sonakshi, Shristi, Savetha and Supriya (6.5 each).
