Deshpande wins his maiden online blitz chess title
| Date :26-Aug-2020 |
Principal Correspondent :
SUHAN Deshpande bounced back from a second round setback to clinch his maiden online blitz chess title, the other day. Out of nine rounds, Deshpande won eight to emerge clear winner of the 11th edition of the competition organised by Nagpur District Chess Association through the platform of lichess.org. Total 42 players participated in the tournament where the time control for players was of 5 minutes each to finish the game. Arush Chitre finished second with 7.5 points while Aditya Bodkhe finished third with seven points. Deshpande, playing with the ID of Cool-Devil started with an easy win over SK Laha.
But he lost the second game to Ayush Ramteke from a strong position. Deshpande regained his composure immediately in the third game with win over Pratham Jumde. The next six rounds all belonged to Deshpande who remained unbeaten from then in the competition. On his way to his maiden online blitz title, Deshpande defeated Harsh Nachankar, Sadanand Mahajan, Aryan Deogade, Nitish Rathi, Arush Chitre and Sumedh Ramteke. Second placed Chitre, winner of the seventh edition, won seven games and drew one against Nitish Rathi to collect 7.5 points.
Aditya Bodkhe lost two games, one to Jay Sawalakhe and another to Chitre to finish third with seven points. Chitre defeated Ramchandran Iyer, Sushant Jumde, Aastha Turankar, Nilay Kulkarni, Sawalakhe, Bodkhe. This is for the second time in last 11 editions that Chitre has finished second. He has a third place finish on two occasions as well. Third placed Bodkhe recorded wins over Reyansh Chaudhary, Krishna Taori, former champion Sumedh Ramteke, Nilay Kulkarni and Nitish Rathi.
The tournament was conducted under the supervision of IA Swapnil Bansod, IA Pravin Pantawane and FA Umesh Panbude. TOP TEN 1. Suhan Deshpande, 2. Arush Chitre, 3. Aditya Bodkhe, 4. Nilay Kulkarni, 5. Sumedh Ramteke, 6. Ayush Ramteke, 7. Aryan Deogade, 8. Bharat Arora, 9. Jay Sawalakhe, 10. Abhir Dhote.