Fenil Shah.

Chennai: Fenil Shah of Gujarat held National under-9 champion Sai Krishna of Andhra Pradesh to a fighting draw in the final round to win the National under-11 chess championship that concluded at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College here on Saturday.

Fenil Shah was declared winner with a better tiebreak score after he figured in a three-way tie for the first place with Y.V.K. Chakravarthy (AP, second) and Shiven Khosla (Mah, third) on nine points from eleven rounds.

Having won a British age-group title and silver medals in the Asian and Commonwealth championships, Fenil added the more difficult Indian under-11 title to his kitty. It was his first National age group title.

Fenil came into chess after his elder brother played the game.

Fenil's favourite player is Garry Kasparov and Manthan Chokshi and G.B. Joshi train him. On a complaint from Andhra, Fenil underwent a medical test and the doctor certified him as under-11.

Fenil is a student of Udgam School For Children in Ahmedabad and he is a class topper. He won eight games, drew two and lost one game to Sahaj Grover (Delhi).

Fortune favoured Chakravarthy after D'Cunha of Karnataka allowed a big family fork of king, queen and rook while involved in a king side attack. Chakravarthy took the second place and Shiven Khosla claimed the third spot. Shiven had beaten the two established players, Sahaj and Sai Krishna here. In the girls section, winner Priyanka Kumari (9/11) of Jharkhand, who had won the tournament with a round to spare, blundered a bishop and lost unexpectedly in 25 moves to Michelle Catherina of Chennai. Michelle took the second place with 8.5 points and J. Vaishnavi (Trichy) took the third place with the same points.

The top three boys and girls will represent India in the Asian and World under-12 championships to be held in Turkey in 2007.

Important results (Round 11, boys): Shiven Khosla 9 bt Sahaj Grover 8.5, Fenil Shah 9 drew with Sai Krishna (AP) 8.5, Vian D'Cunha (Kar) 8 lost to Chakravarthy (AP) 9, Abhilash Reddy (AP) 8.5 bt Ajay Srikanth (TN) 7.5, Niraj Saripalli (Goa) 8 drew with Vishwanath Prasad (AP) 8, Girish Koushik (Kar) 7.5 lost to Shardul Gagare (Mah) 8.5.

Girls: Priyanka Kumari (Jha) 9 lost to Michelle Catherina 8.5, Saranya (TN) 7 lost to Vaishnavi 8.5, Deepika (AP) 8 bt Srinidhi (TN) 7, Agnihothri (Ben) 8 bt Soumya (Mah) 7, Pratyusha (AP) 8 bt Nishtha Gupta (Raj) 6.5, Mahaswetha Kumar (Ass) 7 drew with Sonakshi (Raj) 7, Nandhidhaa (TN) 7 drew with Sujitha (TN) 7, Akhila (TN) 7.5 bt Niyanta Dave (Guj) 6.5.

Final placings:

Boys (in tie-break order): 1-3 Fenil Shah, Chakravarthy, Shiven Khosla 9/11 each, 4-7 Sahaj Grover, Sai Krishna, Shardul Gagare, Abhilash Reddy 8.5 each, 8-15 Viani D'Cunha, Niraj Saripalli, Anurag Mhamal (Goa), Vishwanathan Prasad, Shashaank (TN), Sridev (TN), Samrat Ghorai (Ben), Vishnu Sharon (TN) 8 each.

Girls (in tie-break order): 1 Priyanka Kumari 9/11, 2-3 Michelle Catherina, Vaishnavi 8.5 each, 4-6 Pratyusha, Deepika, Agnihothri 8 each, 7-11 Srinidhi, Akhila (AP), Vanessa D'Souza (Kar), Krushna Mishra (Ori), Anjana Krishnan (Ker) 7.5 each.

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