Indian National Championship won by Surya Ganguly

Indian National Championship

By Praful Zaveri

The Atul 44th National 'A' Chess Championship was held from 18th to 29th December 2006 at the picturesque Atul, District Valsad (State of Gujarat), which is approximately 180 Kms north of Mumbai. For the first time the All India Chess Federation (AICF) experimented with the new format of 13-round Swiss League instead of the marathon 22-player's all-play-all.

The Atul Club – venue of the National 'A' Chess Championship of India

The 44th edition of the Indian National Championship, better known as the National 'A' Chess Championship, was expectedly won by the top-seeded and defending champion, GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly, who powered his way to his fourth consecutive title with a score of 9/13.

The Champion - GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly at work...

... and with the prize for his endeavors.

Final standings

Rk		Name	Rtg	Pts
1	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2573	9
2	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy	2501	8½
3	IM	Arun Prasad S	2424	8½
4		Rohit G	2393	8
5	IM	Suvrajit Saha	2356	8
6		Gopal G N	2397	8
7	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2524	8
8	GM	Neelotpal Das	2490	8
9	IM	Roy Chowdhury S.	2423	8
10	WGM	Harika Dronavalli	2353	7½
11	IM	Gupta Abhijeet	2481	7½
12	IM	Sengupta Deep	2420	7½
13	IM	Prathamesh Sunil	2335	7½
14		Murali Krishnan B T	2364	7½
15	IM	Sundararajan Kidambi	2451	7½
16	GM	Barua Dibyendu	2471	7
17		Rathnakaran K	2422	7
18	IM	Poobesh Anand S	2416	7
19		Palit Somak	2306	7
20	GM	Thipsay Praveen M	2494	6½
21	IM	Venkatesh M R	2466	6½
22	IM	Ravi Lanka	2408	6½

23	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	2407	6½
24		Aswin Jayaram	2322	6½
25	IM	D P Singh	2507	6½
26	GM	Bakre Tejas	2447	6½
27		Parikh Valay	2394	6½
28	IM	Saravanan V	2383	6½
29		Syed Anwar Shazuli	2241	6½
30	IM	Ravi Thandalam S.	2335	6
31	IM	Babu N Sudhakar	2290	6
32	GM	Ramesh R B	2491	6
33		Thejkumar M S	2322	6
34	IM	Himanshu Sharma	2387	6
35		Abhishek Das	2307	6
36	WGM	Swathi Ghate	2385	5½
37		Kamble Vikramaditya	2346	5½
38	IM	Girinath P D S	2344	5½
39	IM	Roktim Bandyopadhyay	2332	5½
40	WGM	Karavade Eesha	2321	5½
41	IM	Prakash G B	2403	5½
42	IM	Laxman R R	2324	5
43		Swapnil Dhopade	2209	5
44	IM	Koshy Varugeese	2325	5
45		Sinha Sudhir Kumar	2182	3