SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Oct 31: Top seed Pritam Singh of Jamshedpur maintained his supremacy in state chess by bagging Aditya Birla Memorial 21st Jharkhand Senior State FIDE Rating Chess Championship-2022 concluded at Sarala Birla University in Ranchi.
Pritam Singh, the highest FIDE rating (1899) player of state, got the highest 8.5 points in nine rounds of the championship. In the final round, he defeated Krishna Kumar Saw (1149 rating) of Dhanbad in 39 moves. Pritam beat the bishop of Saw in the 15th move and maintained pressure in the game.
However, the 8th-round match between Pritam Singh and Manish Sharma was the centre of attraction in the entire tournament. Displaying a brilliant attacking game, Pritam outrightly beat him in 33 moves. With this, Singh has become the 12-time champion in 22 years of the state.
Ankit Kumar Singh was the lone player in the tournament who held Pritam on a draw.
In two months this is the second major title for Pritam Singh. Earlier in September, he won Telco Rating’s highest-ever prize money (Rs 1.72 lakh) in the tournament. After winning the state championship title on October 29, he established himself as the undisputed chess king of Jharkhand.
Ankit Kumar Singh of Bokaro emerged runner-up with 7.5 points. In the final round, Ankit Kumar shared points with Aditi Raj (6.5 points) of Ranchi district.
In the championship, six players Ishant Kishan of Dhanbad, Manish Sharma of West Singhbhum, Bhola Nath Das of Jamshedpur, Kamal Kishore Devnath of West Singhbhum, Aditi Raj of Ranchi and Saurav Kumar of West Singhbhum got equal 7 points each in nine rounds.
However, Ishant Kumar bagged the 3rd position. In the last round, he defeated Umesh Kumar Agrawal (6 points).
Manish Kumar beat Vibhash Kumar Sinha (6)of Dumka to get the 4th position while Bhola Nath Das emerged 5th by beating Kumar Aswini. Kamal Kishore Debnath defeated Mritunjay Choudhary (6 points) of Ranchi in the final round and bagged the 6th position.
Aditi Raj got 7th position after sharing a point (playing draw) with Ankit Kumar Singh (7.5 points) in the 9th round. West Singhbhum’s Saurav Kumar got the 8th position. He defeated Raja Bose of Dhanbad in the final round.
Krishna Kumar Saw and Raja Bose of Dhanbad got 9th and 10th positions respectively with 6.5 points each. In the final round, while Saw had to face defeat by ultimate champion Pritam Singh, Raja Bose went down to Saurav Kumar.
Besides them, Sikander Anis of Bokaro, Ansh Kumar of Ranchi, Arun Kumar, Nitin Raj Sengar, Vibhash Kumar Sinha of Dumka, and Umesh Kumar Agrawal. Mritunjay Choudhary, Abhiraj De, Archit Mittal and Ankush Kumar Singh of Bokaro came among the top 20 players who got cash prizes.
Manish Kumar of Ranchi was the tournament director. Dipak Kumar was the chief arbiter, Vishal Minz of Jamshedpur (deputy chief arbiter), Binod Kumar Saw of Dhanbad, Himanshu Chakraborty, Sucheta Chakraborty (both of Ranchi) and Priyanka Kumari of Dumka conducted the event.
All Jharkhand Chess Association vice-president Vijay Singh, joint secretary Ajay Kumar and treasurer Satish Kumar were among the top officials to run the championship.
