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Bhubaneswar, May 19: Smaraki Mohanty of KIIT emerged champion with 5.5 points while Rutumbara Bidhar of Khurda and Shreejita Khuntia of Cuttack emerged joint second with five points each in the U-17 girls’ category of the Srusti Chess Festival, which concluded here Tuesday.
In the sixth and final round, Smaraki drew with Anisha Mishra. However, Rutumbara continued her dominant run and defeated 12th seed Rupal Mishra. However, top-seed Sunyasakta Satpathy disappointed everyone as she finished 17th after the final round.
In the U-17 open category, Ansuman Samal eased past Vaibhab Singh to claim the winner’s trophy. Susobhit Das and Rudraksh Parida finished second and third respectively. Susobhit defeated Dikshant Das in the seventh and final round while Rudraksh drew with Pranab Kumar Patra.
In the U-7 girls, Anjali Mishra of Khurda suffered defeat at the hands of Sreejana Dash but emerged champion after the completion of sixth round. Sreejana and Sradha Suman Jena finished second and third respectively. Sradha defeated Dibyashrita Swain in the last round.
Second seed Priyansh Das of Jajpur overpowered Abhinav Pal in the seventh and final round to emerge champions in the U-7 open category. Koustuv Das and Sriyansh Das finished with six points each. However, Koustuv was declared second by Buchhloz tie-breaker system.
All the winners in the different categories will get a chance to participate in the national chess championship at Karnataka, October 2-11.
