MANOJ SINHA
Ramgarh, June 27: The four-day first All India FIDE Rating Open Chess Competition organised in the Multipurpose Examination Building Auditorium of Vinoba Bhave University concluded on Sunday. Arpan Das of Bengal emerged as the champion.
He was honoured by the chief guest ASP Abhiyan Rishabh Garg with a cheque of Rs 50,000 and a trophy. Souravjit Saha and Aayush Jha were the runner-ups. As a cash prize, Arpan Das was awarded Rs 50,000, Souravjit Shah was awarded Rs 30,000 and Ayush Jha was awarded Rs 20,000 respectively.
Bengal dominated the entire competition. Bihar secured second place and Jharkhand came third. The players of Odisha and Chhattisgarh were also rewarded with cash prizes. Their ranking was between 20 to 30.
Earlier, district president cum organising committee president Vijay Kumar Singh gave information related to the event and presented a memento to the chief guest. Environmentalists Dr Manoj Singh, Surendra Prasad Singh, Keshav Prasad and district treasurer Rajan Saha and others were also present.
“Chess is a unique and priceless gift given by India to the world. This is a mind game and we all should play this game,” said Rishabh Garg. He added that organising a national-level game in a district like Hazaribagh is commendable.
A total of 226 participants from across the country participated in the competition. Out of these, 87 were international players which included seven-year-old Hrithik Raj and Vedika Chaudhary.
Apart from this, those who got 1800 ratings in the competition are Ishant Kumar (Jharkhand), Sudhakar Prem Dutt (Jharkhand) and Banik Hrishikesh Kumar (West Bengal).
Similarly, among the players who got under 1500 ratings are Bieber Aadat (West Bengal), Raunak Gupta (Jharkhand), Harsh Kumar Jha (Jharkhand) and Aditya Sinha.
Under the best-unrated player category, Shubham Kumar (Bihar), Yog Deep Singh Bhatia (Jharkhand), Siddharth Chandra (Jharkhand) and Atul (Jharkhand) were awarded.
