Nagpur chess to the fore at National Sub Juniors 2017!

by Shahid Ahmed - 17/10/2017

National Sub Junior 2017 was dominated by Nagpur kids: Sankalp Gupta and Divya Deshmukh won it in the Open and Girls category respectively. Commonwealth Silver medalist Sankalp and Gold medalist in World under 12 girls Divya, both of them continued to show their terrific form as they overcame all odds in their quest for National title and a spot at the World Youth Olympiad. We will take a detailed look in the following report, full of pictures and annotated games by the champions and video interviews.

Sankalp Gupta and Divya Deshmukh shine at National Sub Junior 2017

After a draw in the second round and another draw in the fifth round against two lower rated players, no one could have ever predicted that Sankalp Gupta will win the 43rd edition of National Sub Junior Chess Championship in the open category. He was never in the lead until the penultimate round. He won the important last three rounds, scored 9.0/11 and became the champion.

Sankalp delivered his career best performance by scoring 9.0/11 and winning the championship | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Interview with Sankalp Gupta:

Here is a game annotated by Sankalp Gupta against the runner up of the tournament Koustav Chatterjee from round 10:

Koustav Chatterjee also scored 9.0/11 and secured the runner up position | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Commonwealth Gold medalist and World Youth silver medalist, FM Arjun Erigaisi scored 8.5/11 and had to be content with second runner up place | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Top seed of the tournament IM P Iniyan missed a podium finish, scored 8.5/11 and secured 4th place | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Final Ranking after 11 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	5		Sankalp Gupta	U15	IND	2244	MAH	9,0	1,0	74,0	79,5
2	7		Koustav Chatterjee	U15	IND	2222	WES	9,0	0,0	76,5	82,0
3	2	FM	Erigaisi Arjun	U15	IND	2354	TEL	8,5	0,0	78,5	84,0
4	1	IM	Iniyan P	U15	IND	2461	TN	8,5	0,0	76,5	82,5
5	10	CM	Aronyak Ghosh	U15	IND	2185	WES	8,5	0,0	75,0	80,5
6	12		Raahul V S	U15	IND	2153	TN	8,0	0,0	72,0	77,0
7	14		Vatsal Singhania	U15	IND	2071	JHA	8,0	0,0	71,5	76,5
8	11		Dileep Kumar R	U15	IND	2182	TN	8,0	0,0	71,0	76,0
9	3		Saurabh Anand	U15	IND	2288	BIH	8,0	0,0	71,0	75,5
10	13		Rahul S	U15	IND	2079	TN	8,0	0,0	70,0	74,5

In the girls section, Divya Deshmukh continued her dream run, after winning Asian Youth Blitz, Commonwealth, World Cadets in under 12 girls category, by winning 34th National Sub Junior in the girls category. She was the youngest among the top 4 in her group. Her only loss was against the runner up of her group, Sanskriti Goyal. She bounced back and got into joint lead heading into the penultimate round with 7.5 points. She went to final round with a half point lead and maintained her lead by winning the last round.

Divya Deshmukh wins 34th National Sub Junior in girls category by scoring 9.5/11 | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Interview with Divya Deshmukh:

Here is a game annotated by WFM Divya Deshmukh against Salonika Saina of round 9. Just have a look at the depth of the annotations of this young girl. She is way ahead for her age and she puts her thoughts beautifully in the annotations:

After a strong start with 7.0/7 and then suffering two consecutive losses, Sanskriti Goyal won the last two rounds, scored 9.0/11 and became runner up | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Salonika Saina scored 8.5/11 and finished at third position | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Top 4 Boys (L to R): P Iniyan, Sankalp Gupta, Arjun Erigaisi and Koustav Chatterjee | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Top 4 Girls L to R: Aashna Makhija, Salonika Saina, Divya Deshmukh and Sanskriti Goyal | Photo: Ankit Dalal

Final rankings after round 11

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	2	WFM	Divya Deshmukh	IND	2051	MAH	9,5	0,0	76,0	81,5
2	10		Sanskriti Goyal	IND	1819	UP	9,0	0,0	74,0	78,5
3	3	WFM	Salonika Saina	IND	2041	ORI	8,5	0,0	73,5	78,0
4	1		Makhija Aashna	IND	2137	MAH	8,5	0,0	66,5	71,5
5	5		Ghosh Samriddhaa	IND	1984	WES	8,0	0,0	75,0	80,0
6	11	WFM	Bommini Mounika Akshaya	IND	1810	AP	8,0	0,0	69,0	73,5
7	8		Jain Nityata	IND	1842	MP	7,5	0,0	74,5	79,5
8	17		Rajashree Rajeev	IND	1676	KER	7,5	0,0	70,5	75,5
9	20	WCM	Dhyana Patel	IND	1640	GUJ	7,5	0,0	70,0	74,0
10	7	WFM	Lakshmi C	IND	1907	TN	7,5	0,0	66,5	71,5

The event was organized at Rajpath Club, S G Highway in Ahmedabad from 1st to 9th October 2017, organized Gujrat State Chess Association.

Hindi report by Niklesh Jain

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