Singh clinches FIDE-rated chess title

Kozhikode, Sep 23 (UNI) Top seed D P Singh of Jharkhand clinched title with 9.5 points in the first FIDE rated Open Chess Tournament here today R R Laxman of Tamil Nadu and K Ratnakaran of Southern Railways won second and third positions with 7.5 points each in the final round.

Singh, who represented India in the last Chess Olympiad at Italy, bt S Nitin of Tamil Nadu to grab a prize money of Rs 12,000 while Laxman bt A K Jagdeesh of Kerala and Ratnakaran drew with G N Gopal also of Kerala and pocked Rs 9,000 and Rs 7,000 respectively.

With this, Singh topped all the other FIDE-rated tournaments held at Nagpur, Adayar in Tamil Nadu and Goa recently.

Important results: (Final round) D P Singh 9.5 (Jhar) bt S Nitin 7.5 (TN) G N Gopal 7 (Ker) drew with K Ratnakaran 7.5 (SR) R R Laxman 7.5 (TN) bt AK Jagdeesh 6.5 (Ker) O T Anil Kumar 7.5 bt Naveen S Hegde 6.5 (Kar) M Vinod Kumar 7.5 (TN) bt P Jayankur Chougle 6.5 (Mah) K Sujeesh 7.5 (Ker) bt KR Madhusoodanan 6.5 (Ker) P S Ameer 6 (Ker) lost to M B Muraleedharan 7 (Ker) Ram S Krishnan 7 bt G S Sreejith 6 (Ker) E P Nirmal 6.5 (Ker) drew with Girish A Kaushik 6.5 (Kar) M C Manoj 6 (Ker) lost to P V Gireesh 7 (Ker).

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