Arnav Kherdekar Emerges Champion in All India FIDE Chess Rating Tournament

Mumbai's Arnav Kherdekar emerged champion in All India FIDE Rating Open Chess Tournament here on Thursday.

Kherdekar and International Master Vikramaditya Kulkarni finished with 7.5 each at the end of the eighth and final round. The competition was organised by the SMCA Chess School and was held at the Russian House.

Kherdekar, with a better progressive tie-breaker score of 41.25 compared to Kulkarni's 36.75, was declared the champion.

On the second board, Kherdekar (1846) defeated Darsh Shetty (1798) to stay in contention for the top position.

On the top board, Kulkarni (2185) maintained his fine winning streak and defeated Darsh Shetty (1968), but his inferior progressive score of 36.75 saw him finish second.

Pune's Yash Watarkar (1963) came third with seven points. Watarkar beat Yuti Patel (1580) to finish third with seven points.

Results (top-10 final round): IM Vikramaditya (7.5) beat Atharv Soni (6) 1-0; Arnav Kherdekar (7.5) beat Darsh Shetty (6) 1-0; Yash Watarkar (7) beat Yuti Patel (6) 1-0; Guruprasad Kulkarni (6.5) drew with Sanjeev Mishra (6.5) 0.5-0.5; Kartik Kumbhar (6.5) drew with Kshaunish Jaiswal (6.5) 0.5-0.5; AIM Saikat Nath (5.5) lost to Ishaan Tendolkar (6.5) 0-1; Akash Wadhwani (6) drew with Om Gada (6) 0.5-0.5; Dhruv Muthe (5) lost to Saurabh Kulkarni (6) 0-1; Yash Kapadi (6) beat Parv Hakani (5) 1-0; Shubham Baviskar (6) beat Deepak Soni (5) 1-0.