Aravindh Chithambaram kept his cool under pressure to eke out a draw against CRG Krishna to clinched the National Open Senior Chess Championships 2018 crown in Jammu on Tuesday.
The 19-year-old, who had finished runners up in the last two editions of the championship, needed a draw in the final round to grab the crown. And he kept things simple to sign the peace treaty after 35 moves to finish with 10 points which included seven wins and six draws.
Aravindh had jumped into sole lead ahead of the final round by beating Murali Karthikeyan and was always aware that a draw was enough for him to be crowned national champion.
Vaibhav Suri, whose best chance to upstage Aravindh was to win his final round against Srijit Paul and hope that the Chennai lad lost his match to Krishna, ended up losing in 34 moves as he made mistakes while pushing for one full point.
The result helped Krishna finish second on better tie break score in a three-way tie for the second spot.