Srijit Paul wins 26th The Telegraph Schools' Chess 2018

by Shahid Ahmed - 01/03/2018

Srijit Paul of DPS North won the 26th edition of The Telegraph Schools' Chess 2018 held at Gorky Sadan from 27th January to 1st February 2018. Double IM norm holder, 17-year old Srijit remained undefeated, scored 8.5/9 and became champion in a convincing manner. The tournament witnessed 278 players participating across various districts of West Bengal and our neighboring country, Bangladesh. We bring you photos, annotated games of the tournament by champion himself and interview from the tournament by Shahid Ahmed who was present at the venue.

Srijit Paul wins it big by winning the tournament, best game award and runner-up prize for his school

Srijit Paul receives his championship trophy and ₹21000 cash

Final moments from the championship winning game from the last round

Srijit Paul receives Parimal Mukherjee Trophy from Late Parimal Mukherjee's wife for best game

Srijit Paul won the Parimal Mukherjee Trophy for the best game of the tournament for his last round game against FM Mitrabha Guha who got the second position after suffering a loss. Here is the game annotated by the champion Srijit Paul himself.

However, Srijit Paul's personal favorite game from the tournament is from 5th round of the tournament against GM Ziaur Rahman's son Zia Tahsin Tajwar.

FM Mitrabha Guha scored 7.5/9, due to a better tie-break score secured 2nd position bagging home a trophy and ₹16000 cash

FM Rajdeep Sarkar also scored 7.5/9, secured 3rd position and took home ₹12000 cash

South Point (L to R: Mitrabha Guha, Anustoop Biswas and CM Aronyak Ghosh) continued it's dominance by winning the Best School prize with a cumulative score of 22.5/27

Delhi Public School (L to R: Srijit Paul, Oishik Kundu and Subhayan Kundu) finished at 2nd position with a cumulative score of 21/27

Aditya Academy (L to R: Dhritabrata Kundu, Souvik Kar and Sambarta Banerjee) was adjudged 3rd with a cumulative score of 19/27

The tournament was inaugurated by GM Ziaur Rahman and WGM Mary Ann Gomes

Main Playing Hall of the tournament which accommodated over 60 boards

Interviews from the tournament:

Tournament Director Soumen Majumdar speaks about the history of The Telegraph tournament and much more

Bangladesh No. 1, GM Ziaur Rahman talks about his memory of the tournament

Champion Srijit Paul tells why he does not practice chess at the moment

Champion of the 25th edition, GM Diptayan Ghosh takes a trip down memory lane

Joint Secretary of AICF and General Secretary of BCA, IM Atanu Lahiri speaks about spreading chess in India

Final Ranking after 9 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	sex	FED	RtgI	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	3		Srijit Paul			IND	2319	Dps (N)	8,5	0,0	53,0	55,5
2	2	FM	Mitrabha Guha			IND	2319	South Point	7,5	0,0	55,5	60,0
3	1	FM	Rajdeep Sarkar			IND	2393	Bhavan's G.K.Vidyamandir	7,5	0,0	52,5	57,5
4	4	CM	Aronyak Ghosh			IND	2309	South Point	7,5	0,0	51,0	55,5
5	5	FM	Mohammad Fahad Rahman			BAN	2298	Little Jewels International School	7,5	0,0	51,0	53,5
6	9		Anustoop Biswas			IND	2037	South Point	7,5	0,0	50,5	55,0
7	15		Rupam Mukherjee			IND	1721	Uttarpara Amrendra Vidyapith	7,5	0,0	49,5	54,5
8	8		Subhayan Kundu			IND	2071	Dps (N)	7,0	0,0	51,0	56,0
9	28		Shuvam Roy			IND	1600	Sonarpur Shiksha Sadan	7,0	0,0	47,5	50,5
10	23		Rahul Krishna Viswanathan			IND	1661	LSA	7,0	0,0	47,0	51,5
11	36		Soham Pal			IND	1549	The Frank Anthony Public School	7,0	0,0	45,5	50,0
12	26		Sudipa Haldar		w	IND	1618	Shri Shikshayatan School	7,0	0,0	45,5	50,0
13	24		Atri Chattopadhyay			IND	1658	Techno India, Chinsurah	7,0	0,0	42,5	46,0
14	7		Neelash Saha			IND	2105	Nava Nalanda	6,5	0,0	52,5	56,0
15	12		Zia Tahsin Tajwar			BAN	1819	Word Bridge International School	6,5	0,0	51,0	54,0
16	19		Sourath Biswas			IND	1703	Sri Aurobindo Institute Of Educatio	6,5	0,0	50,0	51,5
17	30		Praloy Sahoo			IND	1587	Santragachi Kedarnath Institution(H	6,5	0,0	49,5	52,5
18	17		Sambarta Banerjee			IND	1719	Aditya Academy	6,5	0,0	49,0	54,0
19	27		Soham Dey			IND	1610	Bidhan Nagar Municipal School	6,5	0,0	47,5	51,5
20	57		Sneha Paul		w	IND	1309	St. Augustine's Day School	6,5	0,0	47,0	51,0
21	14		Shouvik Kar			IND	1740	Aditya Academy	6,5	0,0	46,5	51,0
22	31		Alekhya Mukhopadhyay	U12		IND	1583	Sri Aurobindo Institute Of Educatio	6,5	0,0	46,5	51,0
23	11		Aditya Basu			IND	1874	South Point	6,5	0,0	46,0	50,0
24	18		Ambarish Sharma			IND	1714	Apeejay School	6,5	0,0	46,0	49,5
25	25	AIM	Debarghya Samanta	U12		IND	1633	Calcutta Boys School	6,5	0,0	46,0	49,0

Complete ranking in chess-results

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