International Master Karim wins Markaz Al Bahja chess title

MUSCAT: International Chess Master Karim Ismaeel, who returned to the arena after a long gap, made it big at the monthly Markaz al Bahja open chess tournament.

In the latest edition of the popular chess event, Karim Ismael lifted the open category crown for the second time wining all the games with 4 points. Haqqeo Talin with 3.5 points had to settle with the second place ahead of EV Guruprasad who secured third place with 3 points.

Under-14: Pavithra viswanathan showed glimpses of her true attacking form that helped her to clinch top prize in under-14 with 3.5 points ahead of TR Pogul Narayanan and Sai Krishna, who won second and third places with 3 and 2.5 points respectively.

Under-12: Srivatsan Karthikeyan took the first place with 4 points. Both Hemasujan Kathikeyan and Roshini Uthaya Sankar took 3 points. Based on Buchholz (BH) method Hemasujan took the second place with 10 points and Roshini took the third with 9 points.

Under-10: Being the smallest contingent was assigned round-robin format which was convincingly won by Sheryas Seshadri followed by Velavaa Rajavesh and Shaurya Sawlani who took second and third place respectively.

Under-8: Shoaib Shahnawaz won the top spot comfortably with 3.5 points. V Suchitra with 3 points clinched the second place, while G Harikrishna settled for the third place with 2.5 points.