Thej Kumar takes title

BANGALORE: International Master M. Thej Kumar of South Western Railway, with 9.5 points, maintained clean slate to claim the Mangalore FIDE rated chess championship which concluded at Mangalore on Monday.

Easy draw

In the final round, Thej Kumar drew comfortably on the top board with GM Thipsay of Maharashtra in 21 moves.

On the second board, IM K. Ratnakaran of Southern Railways beat G.A. Stany of Karnataka convincingly in 29 moves while IM B.T. Muralikrishnan of Southern Railways beat Navalgundi Niranjan on the third board.

Murali finishes second

Both Muralikrishnan and Ratnakaran tied with nine points, but Murali took the second spot with his better tie-break score.

The final placings (top 10): M.Thej Kumar (SWR, 9.5 pts); 2.B.T. Muralikrishnan (SR, 9); 3. K. Ratnakaran (SR, 9).

4.M.Praveen Thipsay (Mah, 9); 5. Syed Anwar Shahzuali (ICF, 8.5).

6, R. Balasubramaniam (ICF, 8.5); 7. Saptarishi Roy Chowdhry (WB, 8.5); 8. B.S. Shivanand (Kar, 8).

9. G.A. Stany (Kar, 8); 10. N. Niranjan (Kar, 8).