SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Oct 13: Dipak Kumar of Ranchi became Jharkhand’s 3rd International Arbiter (IA) of Chess after getting all four norms at Bikaner (Rajasthan) International Grand Master Chess Tournament.
A senior official of the All India Chess Federation (AICF) said that the international chess body FIDE would officially announce the IA rank to Jharkhand’s Dipak Mishra at its Congress in December.
A FIDE Arbiter gets an International Arbiter rank only after earning four norms of officiating four Grand Master Chess Tournaments. Dipak Kumar completed his 4th and last norm at Bikaner International Grand Master Chess Tournament.
Earlier, he got the first IA norm at the Bhopal GM chess tournament in 2019, the second norm in the Delhi Open GM chess tournament in 2020 and 3rd while officiating the 44th Chess Olympiad at Mahabalipuram (Chennai) in July- August 2022.
Before Dipak Mishra, two FIDE Arbiters of Jharkhand Jayant Kumar Bhuya of Jamshedpur and Aishwarya Sinha of Dhanbad had achieved the IA status.
Besides Dipak, International Master (IM) Neeraj Mishra of Jamshedpur and Prabhat Ranjan Kumar of Dhanbad were also felicitated at Bikaner International Grand Master Chess Tournament for their IA norm. Neeraj Mishra has got 3rd IA norm and Prabhat Ranjan Kumar is his first.
Vishal Minj and Chandan Kumar Prasad of the state are also in the queue to get IA rank.
All Jharkhand Chess Association joint secretaries Ajay Kumar, and International Arbiter Jayant Kumar Bhuyan former treasurer Arvind Kumar Sinha congratulated Dipak Kumar Sinha for achieving all four norms of IA. They also congratulated IM Neeraj Mishra and Prabhat Ranjan Kumar for getting 3rd and 1st IA norm respectively.
Pritam Singh disappoints, Aditya Sinha excels in the ‘B’ category
Jharkhand’s top-rank players Pritam Singh and Ishant Kumar failed to perform as per their reputation in Bikaner (Rajasthan) International Grand Master Chess Tournament. Despite starting the tournament on a winning note in the first round they scored a total of 3 points only. A total of 79 players had participate in the ‘A’ category tournament. However, Aditya Sinha of Jharkhand scored 6 points. A total of 313 players participated in it.
