New Delhi: GM R.B. Ramesh, who has already won the National B Chess Championship, finished off with a quick draw with IM Lanka Ravi in the final round on Saturday.

Ramesh finished with 10.5 points out of a possible 13 and gained 20 rating points. He led a pack of 13 players by one point who battled hard to reach the magical 9.5 mark to qualify for National A, along with Ramesh.

The lucky 14 included six first time qualifiers, Himanshu Sharma, third seed IM B.S. Shivanandan, Asian junior champion S. Arun Prasad, MS Thej Kumar, Vikramaditya Kamble, Diwakar Prasad Singh. The others who made it were Ravi, Sriram Jha, P. D. S. Girinath, Deepan Chakravarthy, Arghyadip Das, D.K. Sharma and Abhijit Gupta. (PTI)