Abhishek triumphs

With IMs Suvrajit Saha of West Bengal and Shyam Nikil P of Tamil Nadu, who shared the joint top spot along with Das on Saturday, playing out a draw and settling for nine points each, Das pocketed the title after scoring a victory over Ponnuswamy. Das beat Ponnuswamy using a pet variation of Sicilian Pelikan defence to finish with 9.5 points.

Saha, Nikil and Karnataka’s Thejkumar, who also had nine points to his name, signed off joint second at 9 points.

Important results (final round): IM Suvrajit Saha (WB, 9) drew IM Shyam Nikil P (TN, 9); IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy (TN, 8) lt to Abhishek Das (SWR, 9.5); IM Saptarshi Roy (Rly, 8) lt to IM Thejkumar MS (SWR, 9); IM Shivananda BS (Kar, 8.5) drew Stany GA (Kar, 8.5); IM Sangma Rahul (Del, 8.5) bt IM Nitin S (TN, 8); IM Anwesh Upadhyaya (Ori, 7.5) lt to Karthikeyan Murali (TN, 8.5); Premnath R (TN, 7.5) lt to IM Himanshu Sharma (Har, 8.5); IM Prakash GB 
(IB, 8) drew Matta Vinay Kumar (Andra Bank, 8); Shreyansh Daklia (CHGR, 7.5) lt to IM Praveen Kumar C (ICF, 8.5); GM Laxman RR (ICF, 8) bt IM Hegde Ravi Gopal (Kar, 7); GM Thipsay Praveen M (Mah, 8) bt Sriram Sarja (Kar, 7); IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh R (TN, 8) bt Chattarjee Laltu (WB, 7); Hemant Sharma (Del, 7.5) drew GM Sriram Jha (Del, 7.5); WGM Ramaswamy Aarthie (AI, 8) bt IM Swapnil S Dhopade (Mah, 7.5); FM Maheswaran P (TN, 7.5) drew IM Rathnakaran K (Ker, 7.5); IM Karthikeyan P (TN, 8) bt Santu Mondal (WB, 7).