Chandigarh, May 21, 2017: Second seed Himal Gusain won the 3rd Pavna All India Fide Rated Chess Tournament-2017 at Aligarh (UP) by securing 8.5 points out of nine games. Top seed International Master Himanshu Sharma of Haryana finished third with 7.5 points. The second position was bagged by Gajendra Singh of UP with 7.5 points.
As many as 181 players participated from all over India. The total prize money was Rs 5 lakh where Himal got 1st prize of Rs.50,000 . He won 8 games, drew 1 against the top seed Himanshu Sharma and remained unbeaten. Himal Gusain also increased 7 rating points and now will have rating 2461. In the last round he outplayed Sumit Grover of J&K to emerged as Champion.
Chandigarh Chess Association Vice-President Naveen Bansal congratulated Himal Gusain on his achievement which has made the chess fraternity of Chandigarh proud.
Final ranking: 1 Himal Gusain (Chd) 8.5 pts; 2 Gajendra Singh (UP); 3 Himanshu Sharma (Haryana)7.5 pts each, 4 Anuj Shrivati (MP), 5 Deepak Katiyar (Delhi), 6 Dubey Sanchay (UP) , 7 Ankit Sen (UP), 8 Pankaj Sharma (Punjab) 7 each; 9 Rishab Nishad (UP), 10 Sumit Grover (JK), 11 Deepak Rai (Del), 12 Dave Kantilal (Raj), 13 Esshan Wadhawan (Delh), 14 Leeladhar Kachroo (Har), 15 Negi DS (Delhi), 16 Ashu Verma (UP), 17 Varun Sharma (MP), 18 Haribabu Sharma (UP), 19 Vasu Bajpai (UP) 6.5 each.