In an impressive feat, 13-year-old Sachin Pitamber captured the National Under-16 Boys Chess Championship while fifteen-year-old Maliha Rajkumar took the National Under-16 Girls title on Saturday, at the Marian Academy Auditorium.
Over fifty young chess players clashed in a battle of minds and tactics on the chess boards in the One-Day championship across seven rounds of fast-paced chess. They were matched using the Swiss Pairing System and played with a time limit of 20 minutes per game with 5-second increments after each move.
Pitamber with this latest triumph, now holds the double title of National Under-14 and Under-16 Chess Champion for 2024. He was tied on 6.5 points with his closest rival, fourteen-year-old Kyle Couchman who was the 2023 National Under-16 Open Champion, but Pitamber emerged as champion on a tiebreak.
