The winners of The Telegraph Schools’ Chess Championship with chief guest Sourav Ganguly at Gorky Sadan on Monday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Eleven-year-old Girish Kaushik, a student of class VI of St Thomas School, Mysore, emerged as the champion in the 20th The Telegraph Schools’ Chess Championship at Gorky Sadan on Monday.

Girish, who was leading the fray by a clear point, drew his last round game against Hemant Sharma in spite of having an extra pawn.

He finished the only Fide-rated school chess tournament in the country on 9 points and went home richer by Rs.20,000. The icing on the cake, however, was the glittering trophy which he received from Sourav Ganguly.

Girish, who came to Calcutta straight from Ahmedabad, having won the National U-11 boys’ title, has won 17 of his last 21 games and drawing only four. “I am happy I came for this tournament because I enjoyed playing this school tournament thoroughly,” said Girish, who idolises the legendary Garri Kasparov.

“Kasparov’s games are so instructive, he calculates well and is good positionally.” Girish who devotes almost six hours daily to chess will next play in the National B in Goa from September 16.

Sayantan Das of Scottish Church Collegiate School, who led the championship till round 7, was placed 2nd on 8.5 points as he overpowered Aditya Chakraborty of Delhi Public School, Ruby Park with the white pieces in a Sicilian English Attack.

Top seed, Satyajit Kundu, too scored 8.5 points but had to be content with the 3rd spot as he had a lower progressive score. Playing black, Satyajit handed a lesson in end-game play to Dhee Sankar as he won a opposite coloured bishop ending in a marathon game.

The Asian U-10 champion, Diptayan Ghosh won a piece and the game against Nabarun Nandy to take the 5th place. Diptayan, was awarded the Parimal Mukherjee Memorial prize for the best game for his match against Aditya Chakraborti. The prize was handed over by Mrs Anindita Mukherjee.

Diptayan was presented with a laptop by Alekhine Chess Club for getting the gold medal in the Asian U-10 boys’ championship.South Point represented by Diptayan Ghosh, Sukanya Dutta, Subhojyoti Saha and Mitrabha Guha was declared the best school on 29 points edging out St Xavier’s Collegiate School by half a point.

Former team India captain Sourav Ganguly, who was the chief guest on the occasion, enthralled the budding chess players.

The prizes were also given away by V.V. Lazarev, consul general of Russian Federation in Calcutta, Sergei Cherkas deputy head, Russian Centre for Science and Culture, New Delhi, Alexander Mazirka, director Gorky Sadan, Kumar Shankar Bagchi, president Alekhine Chess Club, Udayan Kanti Ghose, joint secretary, AICF, and Amitabha Datta, president dailies, ABP.

TOP BOARD RESULTS

ROUND 10: Girish Kaushik (9) drew with Hemant Sharma(8); Dhee Sankar (7.5) lost to Satyajit Kundu (8.5); Sayantan Das (8.5) bt Aditya Chakraborty (7.5); Sayan Bose (8) bt Chandrashish Majumder (7); Diptayan Ghosh (8) bt Nabarun Nandy (7); Mosabber Khan Shiblu (7) lost to Samrat Ghorai (8); Sukanya Dutta (8) bt Anubhav Mondal (7); Saikat Mullick (7.5) drew with Aubhropratim Manna (7.5); Shantanil Simlai (8) bt Sourabh Mondal (7); Prince Bajaj (7.5) bt Sumit Kumar (6.5); Prantik Roy (7)drew with Sayan Majumder (7); Agnihotri Ghosh (6.5) lost to Pallabi Roy (7.5); Kaushalendra Kumar (7.5) bt Saiat Dutta (6.5); Mohana Sengupta (7.5) bt Akshay Khator (6.5); Ankit K Singh (7) drew with Mahasweta Kumar (7); Dhriti Shankar (7.5) bt Rishav Mitra (6.5); Shoumi Mukherjee (7) drew with Suvradeepta Das (7); Pritam Ghosh (6.5) lost to Vishal Iyer (7); L Shakespeare (6) lost to Aushik Nigam (7); Shaati Majumder (7) bt Sarthak Kundu (6).