Youngster Sammed Shete on Wednesday upset seasoned campaigner Abhijit Kunte in the fifth round of the National Chess Championship currently underway in Patna, Sportstar reported.
Shete, who turned 18 last month, was making his first appearance at the nationals. He capitalised on the 14th move going on to win in just 29 moves.
“I knew I had my chances in the last two rounds but I know these things happen. I wanted to focus on the next game. Today, I am very happy with this result,” Sammed was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Aravindh Chithambaram got the better of Swapnil Dhopade to join SL Narayanan and MR Lalith Babu in the lead after taking his tally to 3.5 points.
Results (5th round): Arvindh Chithambaram (3.5) beat Swapnil Dhopade (2); Sammed Shete (2.5) beat Abhijit Kunte (2); Deepan Chakkravarthy (1.5) lost to RR Laxman (3); SL Narayanan (3.5) drew with M Karthikeyan (3); MR Lalith Babu (3.5) drew with Arghyadip Das (2.5); S Nitin (2.5) drew with Debashis Das (2); P Shyaam Nikhil (2) drew with Himanshu Sharma (1.5).
Rithvik, Priyanka emerge champions at U-17 meet
Raja Rithvik of Telangana and K Priyanka of Tamil Nadu emerged champions in the open and girls categories at the 28th National Under-17 chess championship, which concluded in Coimbatore on Wednesday.
In the open category, Erigaisi Arjun of Telangana finished second while Mitrabha Guha of West Bengal took the third spot.
Arpita Mukherjee of West Bengal finished second in the girls category, while Tarini Goyal of Chandigarh finished third.
The top two players in each category (open and girls) will represent India at the World Championships and Commonwealth Championships in 2018.
With inputs from PTI.
