Abhijeet thanks luck for winning world junior chess championship

New Delhi, Aug 18 (UNI) After winning the Gold in the world junior chess championship that concluded on August 15 at Gaziantep, Turkey, Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta made sure of his place in the history of Indian chess.

''I am hounered to win the championship on India's 61st Independence day. I was focused and somehow I was able to do keep the momentum ticking,'' he told UNI here today.

''I guess, one has to be a bit lucky to win the championship, playing well is another matter,'' he added.

The title comes back to India after a gap of four years and Abhijeet joined the ranks of world champion Viswanathan Anand and P Harikrishan who had won this title in 1987 and in 2004.

Abhijeet became a Grandmaster in 2007 and earlier this year won the famous Parsavnath Internationl open chess tournament here. Prior to that, in Delhi itself, he had won the Bronze in the Commonwealth Championship.

For Abhijeet, the sucess path has been smooth for the past few years. He has erscalated his rating to 2551 ELO points in the recent FIDE list and he stands to gain another 30 points from his recent outings which will take him further in the Indian as well as world rankings.

In the world Abhijeet scored 10 points in all out of 13 and while it was a sedate start with just 4.5/7, a brilliant 5/5 finish propelled him to win the coveted crown.

The international Master Vishal Sareen, Abhijeet's trainer, who was also breifing the mediapersons, said he is feeling proud and praised the briliant performance of Abhijeet in championship.

''I am feeling proud, the way Abhijeet did in the world junior chess championship was superb,'' Vishal said.

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