Nitin Wins With Ease

By Arvind Aaron
 

Top seed FIDE Master Senthilvel Nitin, 16, of Salem won the 8th Adyar Times FIDE Rated Open Tournament with a round to spare at Chennai on August 3. Nitin was the second player after the controversial D.P.Singh (winner 2006) to win the event with a round to spare. He scored a straight 8/8 and then drew the last two rounds quickly.

For Nitin, a class eleven student from Sri Saradha Matriculation Balamandir, Salem this was the third triumph in a FIDE rated event. He had done it at SPIC and Palani both in 2006. He works on chess together with his father, Senthilvel.

Players from Salem have been in the news this year. S. Arun Prasad had become India's latest grandmaster. The first well known player from Salem was P. Konguvel who went on to win the National "A". Nitin had been India's team member in the Youth Olympiad team of 2007 which actually won the gold medal. He wants to become a grandmaster.

Four players tied for the second place on eight points. Grand Master norm holder Arun Karthik (SRM) was second and second seed Praveen Kumar took third place. Chennai's Ramnath Bhuvanesh impressed defeating Dusthageer Ibrahim of Madurai with black for the fourth place. "After many years I am in the prize list of two successive events," said FIDE Master K.V. Shantharam of Indian Bank who finished fifth.

A.D. Ranjan, Publisher, Adyar Times presented the Rs.100,000 prize fund. The number of entries in Adyar Times FIDE Rated Open fell from 227 to 186. IA S. Paul Arokia Raj was the chief arbiter. As always a group of Sri Lankan players led by Suneetha Wijesuriya came and gave some publicity to the event.

V. Kameswaran, retired Income Tax officer from Chennai won the best veteran prize. His main rivals were K.N. Kalyanasundaram, former Secretary of the AICF, P.S. Vaidyanathan, one of the founders of the Tamil Nadu Chess Association, L.K. Ramachandran, etc. R. Ravindran, former National "A" player from Bangalore said young players are giving him a tough time. After three rounds he had just one point. One of his losses was when somebody called his mobile phone.

Talking of mobile phones, Saket Kumar, 27, of Delhi took his mobile phone in his hand after only 8 moves were made and T.R. Shanmuganathan, his opponent ran to the arbiter and claimed a point. Head arbiter Paul Arokia Raj awarded him a point despite the phone not ringing. This decision is going to be a precedent for other such claims in the future. Saket claimed that his mobile phone did not have a "sim" and it was "injustice". He made a protest. The arbiters felt they were armed with chess rules and not about which mobile used SIM and which does not use a SIM! It never made it to the Appeals Committee as organiser K. Murali Mohan, General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association felt it was an administrative matter with the rules and not a dispute. In the opinion of this writer, third time offenders of mobile phone ringing should be recommended for a ban even if it is for a one year time period. Saket Kumar has lost two games so far. Despite this loss for handling the mobile, Saket managed to come in the main prize list.

Final placings (tie-break order): 1 S. Nitin 9/10, 2-5. R. Arun Karthik, C. Praveen Kumar, Ramnath Bhuvanesh, K.V. Shantharam 8 each, 6-11. Ram S Krishnan, P. Praveen Prasad, M.L. Abhilash Reddy, M. Harihara Sudan, Pratik Shriwas, T. Gowtham 7.5 each, 12-19. T.R Shanmuganathan, R.S. Arun Srinivaas, P. Maheswaran, Dusthageer Ibrahim, Venkat Sundaram, Linda Rangarajan, K. Gopalakrishnan, S. Raghuraman 7 each, 20. Saket Kumar 6.5.


Home                                                         Published on 06^th August, 2008