SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 2: Fighting against all odds, Dhanbad players made their mark in the Sarala Birla 21st state senior chess championship concluded in Ranchi last week by getting a place among the top 10 contestants in the state.
A fifteen-year-old schoolboy Ishant Kumar from Dhanbad got the third position as well as a place in the state team for national while Krishna Saw, DAV Baniyahir emerged 9th and Raja Bose 10th respectively.
Pritam Singh of Jamshedpur and Ankit Kumar Singh of Bokaro emerged first and second respectively in the championship. Ishant Kumar (1708 FIDE rating) earned total of 7 points out of nine rounds in the championship and got prize money of Rs 8,000.
Besides it, with this outstanding performance in the state championship, Ishant also bagged 171 rating points. A total of 146 players from 14 districts participated in the championship.
Krishan Saw of Dhanbad, son of FIDE arbiter Binod Kumar Saw, also performed as per his reputation and achieved 9th position in the championship with 6.5 points. He got prize money of Rs 1,500. In the ninth and final round, he lost to ultimate champion Pritam Singh of Jamshedpur.
Another player of Dhanbad, Raja Bose, also made his mark in the state championship with his performance. He earned 6.5 points and finished 10th with a prize money of RS 1,500.
Besides these trio, Archit Mittal, Pratibha Singh and Rishav Kumar of Dhanbad also drew the attraction of chess pundits by displaying their games in the championship. Archit Mittal earned 19th position with six points and got prize money of Rs 800. Pratibha Singh earned 5.5 points and Rishav Kumar 5 points.
The Dhanbad District Chess Association general secretary Neeraj Mishra (IM), joint secretary Mukesh Sinha, former state association treasurer Arvind Kumar Sinha, FIDE arbiter Prabhat Ranjan congratulated the players for their superb performance and expressed hope that the selected player would repeat his performance in the national championship too.
