SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, April 6: Dishita Dey, a promising player of Jamshedpur, created a major ripple in the ongoing state under 18-girls chess championship being organized at JRD Sports Complex by shocking two top seed players of the state.
In the first round, Dishita defeated Harshivi Matalia of Dhanbad, the top seed in the championship, while in the second round, she earned full points against Kaushiki Kumari of Saraikela Kharsawan district.
National arbiter Jayant Bhuyan, who is supervising the championship, said that after the completion of two rounds, East Singhbhum’s Dishita Dey and Sunidhi Singh have emerged as joint leaders in the title race with two points each.
Unseeded Sunidhi Singh defeated Kiriti Kumari of Jamshedpur in the second round. Earlier, in the first round, she had beaten girl under-10 state champion Niharika Chakraborty of Ranchi to continue in the title race of the championship.
In the boys’ under-18 open section, five players Archit Jaiswal, Om Narayan Bhuyan, Kumar Sankalp (all from East Singhbhum), Ishant Kumar and Krishna Kumar Saw (both from Dhanbad) are sharing the lead after the end of round two.
Upset results also came in the boys’ section. Unseeded player Ankit Gupta of Jamshedpur surprised the 4th seed of the championship Rishav Kumar of East Singhbhum. Rishav’s woes continued even in the second round when Ankit Verma of West Singhbhum defeated him.
Besides him, the second-seeded Adhiraj Mitra of East Singhbhum also tasted defeat at the hand of Krishna Kumar Saw of Dhanbad. Saw is the 9th seed in the championship.
A pack of six are trailing with one point each which includes Pratibha Singh of Dhanbad and Tejal Burman of Ranchi.
Jharkhand State Chess Association secretary Neeraj Mishra said that the two top players of the championship will be selected for the Jharkhand team to represent in the national championship which is to be held later this year.
