PANJIM: IM Thejkumar of Railways won the 1st all-India open FIDE rating chess tournament organized by Tiswadi Taluka Chess Association (TTCA), at Institute Menenzes Braganza hall, here, recently.
With eight wins and a draw, Thejkumar scored 8.5 points out of the nine rounds and remained undefeated in the tournament. In the last round Thejkumar defeated Ameya Audi of Goa. He was the top seed of this tournament and dominated his superiority throughout.
Three players were tied with the score of 7.5 points but due to better tie-break, IM Akshat Kamparia of Madhya Pradesh stood second. Niranjan Navalgund and Vijay Anand M of Tamil Nadu finished third and fourth respectively.
The other prize winners from fifth to 30th spots are FM Ramakrishna, Shreyas Hapse, Vedant Panesar, Shane Braganca (seven points each), Rohan Ahuja, IM Sammer Katmale, Prasanna S, Stanley Samson, IM BS Shivananda, Ameya Audi, Barath M Saranya, J Pruthu Deshpande, Sunny Renju, Dhanush Bhardwaj, Rahit Vassan, Wilson Cruz, Ian Savio Rodriques (6.5 points each), Raghavendra V, Ojas Kulkarni, Vinay Abraham, Anant Prabhudesai, Rishubh Naik, Rahul Verma, Krishnamoorthy, Siddhant Dharwar (six points each).
Rating category prizes from 1000 to 1800 were awarded to Ayush Ramchandra Shetkar, Sachin Kakodkar, Harsh Bhobe, Sahil Shety, Kabir Belgikar, Sourav Raj, Sirsat Shekhar, Anandha Venkatesan and Gaurav Madkaikar.
The age group category prizes from under-7 boys and under-15 girls went to Sairaj Vernekar, Joy Kakodkar, Colaso Vernon, Pratik Borkar, Sanvi Naik Gaonkar, Calantha Gomes, Asmit Arunjay Kumar, Madhavan G, WCM Chopdekar Gunjal, Tanvi Hadkonkar, Manoj Kulkarni, Vinay Kamath, WCM Swera Braganca, Faizizia Khan, Milind Gauns, Aniketh Datta Prabhu, Prabhugaonkar Adittee and Sakshi Naik Gaonkar.
Other category prizes went to Suhas Asnodkar, Nandhini Saripalli, Vivek Gajanan Joshi, Suyan Belurkar, Riddhi Zantye Somnath Sakhardande.
At the closing ceremony, Minister for Tourism Dilip Parulekar was the chief guest who gave away the prizes in the presence of Suraj Morajkar, Vinay Tendulkar (President of GCA and BJP Goa), Sanjay Harmalkar (Chairman IMB), Kishor Bandekar (Joint Secretary AICF and secretary of GCA), Mahesh Candolkar (Tournament Director and President TTCA), Sanjay Belurkar (Organizing Secretary TTCA), Balakrishnan V (Treasurer), Arvind Mhamal (chief arbiter), Madhan R and other officials of GCA and TTCA.
