Diwakar Prasad, who won the title with a round to spare, with the trophy.

CHENNAI: Ram S. Krishnan of Chennai remained undefeated and finished runner-up with a quick five-move draw in the final round of the sixth Adyar Times chess tournament that came to a close here on Friday.

Having won the event with a round to spare might have prompted normal mortals to take it easy. But, title winner Diwakar Prasad Singh was in no mood for such a compromise. He signed off with a brilliant queen sacrifice to down IM T.S. Ravi with black pieces to finish on a winning note.

Diwakar will gain 25 ELO points for his superlative 9.5/10 score, according to chief arbiter S. Paul Arokia Raj. He drew with runner-up Ram and defeated the rest.

Quite on his own

With no employer or sponsor, Diwakar is supporting himself with the cash prizes he wins from open tournaments.

He is India's No. 3 and is seeded for the National `A' event but wants to play in the `B' event next month for experience and money. All this may look eccentric but when you are 30 and without a job, such thinking could be normal. He is hopeful of completing his GM norms in three events. Meanwhile, Asian under-14 champion S. Nitin of Salem took third spot.

Adyar Times publisher A.D. Ranjan gave away the prizes. TN State Chess Association vice-president J.C.D. Prabhakaran lauded Adyar Times for its support to the game.

The results (round 10):

T.S. Ravi lost to D.P. Singh; Ram S. Krishnan drew with Shantharam; Shyam Nikhil bt V. Hariharan; S. Nitin bt Vinoth Kumar; R. Ashwath drew with Arun Karthik; D. Das lost to J. Sridhar; Sagar Shah lost to Laxman; P. Sivasankari lost to Murugan; Sudhakar Babu lost to Sa Kannan; T.S. Nandakumar lost to O.T. Anilkumar; V. Haribalu bt S. Samson.

Final placings: 1 D.P. Singh (9.5); 2-4 Ram S. Krishnan, S. Nitin, Shyam Nikhil (8); 5-7 Arun Karthik, K.V. Shantharam, J. Sridhar (7.5); 8-10 V. Hariharan, Vinoth Kumar, O.T. Anilkumar (7). — Arvind Aaron

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail