Lucknow: Former UP champion Sumit Kumar Jha (rated 1935) of Kanpur played a perfect 7/7 to win the Charans Plaza Chess Cup 2023 in Lucknow. Rated 1935, the Indian Bank assistant branch manager, currently posted in Bahraich, returning to professional chess after ten years said, "My best game was Arif Ali's Alekhine in the sixth round. It could have gone either way. It was very close. Ali faltered in time pressure."
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| Charans Plaza GM Narendra Sharma with prize winners at the Rs 10,000 Charans Plaza Chess Cup 2023 in Lucknow. |
Top seed Arif Ali (2039), Lucknow's strongest senior player, was second with five points ahead of UP's top-rated junior Harshit Amarnani (1811) also scoring five. Harshit, currently studying at Asoka University, Sonepat, was playing right after winning the silver medal in the u1800 section at the Phuket Blue Chevaliers International Chess Open 2023.
Senior trainer Saeed Ahmad (5 points) won the +60 section followed by KK Kharey (4 points) and Mohd Irfan (3.5 points). Indrani Basu, grandmother of former state champion Sameer, was first in the +60 women's category.
In the +18 women's category, unrated Vartika R Verma (4 points) was first followed by Aiman Akhtar (3 points).
General Manager, Charans Plaza, Hazratganj, Lucknow, Narendra Sharma, gave away the prizes. Fide International Arbiter PN Naveen Karthikeyan presented his book "18x64 Chess with Bhagavad Gita shlokas" to young participants of the tournament.
Open top-standings: Sumit Kumar Jha 7 points, Arif Ali, Harshit Amarnani, Anchal Rastogi, Arjun Singh 5 pts, Rajendra Kumar, Ravi Shankar 4.5 pts, Anirudh Dwivedi, Aditya Tandon, Tejas Krishna T 4 pts.
Age-group winners:
U9 1st-3rd Vivaan Agarwal 4 points, Akshat Srivastava 3.5, Shahab Mural Alam, Yuvaan Grover 3 pts.
U13 1st-3rd Aarav Garv 6.5 pts, Abhinav Verma, Ujjwal Raj Srivastava, Samyak Sagar, Shubh Sahai, Tahaan Khan 5 pts, Anant Mohan, Aaryav Yogesh, Arjun Garg 4 pts.
U17 1st-3rd Anvitha Verma 6 pts, Aqrab Alam, Ariz Hussain, Aaradhy Gupta 5.5 pts, Arnav Tripathi 5 pts.
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