Mitrabha Guha and Harshita Guddanti are National Sub-Junior 2016 champions!
The 2016 National under-15 took place four months ago in Delhi. Mitrabha Guha and Harshita Guddanti emerged as the champions in the open and girls section respectively. "Somehow under the workload of different articles and projects I wasn't able to complete this report," says IM Sagar Shah. "But the quality of the content was so high that I wanted to publish it in spite of the delay." So here you have it - the under-15 National report rich with annotated games, pictures and anecdotes. Hope you enjoy it!
The 42nd National under-15 Championships in the Open category and the 33rd National under-15 for Girls were held from the 20th to the 28th of November 2016 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium, New Delhi. It was an exciting event with some of the best sub-junior players of our country fighting out against each other for the top spot.
Mitrabha played phenomenal chess and score 9.5/11 to win the tournament by a half point margin. He even gained 98 Elo points. Gaining so many points at an Elo of 2250 is truly outstanding. Apart from the top prize he also won a copy of ChessBase 14. Here is his favourite game from the event:
Harshita is a tenth standard student and loves the games of Garry Kasparov. She is currently being trained by IM Satyapragyan Swayangsu. When asked to send us her favourite game, she chose the one against Sanskriti Goyal from the last round that helped her win the event.
It was a heartbreaking last round for Rajdeep. He was leading the tournament and had a drawn rook endgame against Arjun Ergiasi. However, he made a wrong king move and that was enough to make him settle for the bronze instead of the gold. This last round clash between Arjun and Rajdeep is filled exciting moments and has been annotated by Arjun for us.
For Vantika it was a case of being too solid. The maximum wins tiebreak ensured that with seven wins and four draws she had to settle for the silver. She was surely a tad upset at this result especially because she was leading through most of the event. Here's her round three victory over Rajashree Rajeev.
Toshali scored 8.0/11 to finish third. Here's her favourite game from the event, her fourth round win against Rutvi Shah.
There are a few individuals who work without any noise. Quietly, but with great purpose they make a difference in the overall scheme of things. Devanshi is one such person who is doing some exceptional work. She is the founder of Project Checkmate. She started this project with the aim to help the under-privileged children through the game of chess. It has now ventured into teaching chess to the blind at the National Association of the Blind, New Delhi.
Devanshi's book called ‘Chess Notes’ was converted into a Braille version for the visually impaired children to read and learn chess. She worked regularly with a few students before their national tournament and on Skype during the event.
Download Devanshi's free e-book: Chess Notes
Frederic Friedel was in India during the event for the promotion of ChessBase India, Fritz and Chesster and also to speak at the Bookaroo Chess Festival. When the co-founder of ChessBase is present...
Final Ranking of Open after 11 Rounds
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | Rtg | Club/City | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | |
| 1 | 12 | FM | Mitrabha Guha | IND | 2250 | WB | 9,5 | 0,0 | 9,0 | 76,5 |
| 2 | 9 | CM | Erigaisi Arjun | IND | 2300 | TEL | 9,0 | 1,0 | 8,0 | 74,5 |
| 3 | 10 | FM | Rajdeep Sarkar | IND | 2274 | WB | 9,0 | 0,0 | 8,0 | 75,5 |
| 4 | 14 | Jayakumaar S | IND | 2186 | TN | 8,5 | 0,0 | 8,0 | 72,0 | |
| 5 | 4 | Rahul Srivatshav P | IND | 2325 | TEL | 8,5 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 73,5 | |
| 6 | 5 | FM | Rakesh Kumar Jena | IND | 2310 | ODI | 8,5 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 71,0 |
| 7 | 21 | CM | Aronyak Ghosh | IND | 2089 | WB | 8,5 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 70,0 |
| 8 | 3 | Iniyan P | IND | 2370 | TN | 8,0 | 0,0 | 8,0 | 76,5 | |
| 9 | 36 | CM | Kushagra Mohan | IND | 1960 | TEL | 8,0 | 0,0 | 8,0 | 70,0 |
| 10 | 79 | Aditya B Kalyani | IND | 1707 | KAR | 8,0 | 0,0 | 8,0 | 63,5 |
Final Ranking of girls after 11 Rounds
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | Rtg | Club/City | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | |
| 1 | 5 | Harshita Guddanti | IND | 1979 | AP | 9,0 | 0,5 | 8,0 | 70,5 | |
| 2 | 3 | Vantika Agrawal | IND | 2051 | DEL | 9,0 | 0,5 | 7,0 | 75,5 | |
| 3 | 11 | Toshali V | IND | 1752 | AP | 8,0 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 72,5 | |
| 4 | 6 | WFM | Lakshmi C | IND | 1905 | TN | 8,0 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 72,0 |
| 5 | 1 | WFM | Arpita Mukherjee | IND | 2108 | WB | 8,0 | 0,0 | 6,0 | 74,5 |
| 6 | 26 | Tanya Pandey | IND | 1614 | MAH | 8,0 | 0,0 | 6,0 | 65,5 | |
| 7 | 18 | Shah Rutvi | IND | 1696 | GUJ | 7,5 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 69,5 | |
| 8 | 12 | Abhirami Madabushi | IND | 1732 | AP | 7,5 | 0,0 | 7,0 | 64,0 | |
| 9 | 10 | Ghosh Samriddhaa | IND | 1754 | WB | 7,5 | 0,0 | 6,0 | 70,0 | |
| 10 | 13 | WFM | Bommini Mounika Akshaya | IND | 1729 | AP | 7,5 | 0,0 | 6,0 | 68,5 |
