In a race to finish on the podium and secure their place among the four players to be selected to represent Chandigarh in the National Challengers to be held from September 15 to 26 at Biwani (Haryana), there was a strong challenge from the players to end the second day on a strong note in the 21st Chandigarh Chess Championship being held at St Xavier’s School, Sector 44.

With just a day left, the plan was to secure as many points as possible so that there was no last-day anxiety for the players. Himal Gusain and Sanjeev Biswas, two of the players to share the top spot on Thursday, once again came up with superb performances to finish at the top spot after collecting four points each.

With Abhinandan Vohra, Jaskeerat Singh Ahluwalia, Baijnath Prasad, Nitin, Pradeep Singh Negi, Manu Aggarwal and Rakesh Kochar also in race to finish on the podium, the race got exciting with every successive matches.

However, apart from Himal and Sanjeev, who added two points to their overnight tally of two, the remaining players could add just one point to their overnight score and had to satify themselves with the second spot with a total of three points each. The others to finish with three points after round four were Varun Utreja, Sunil Bansal, Karan Bhatti and Simranjeet Kaur.

Tejas Nagpal also added one point to finish the day with 2.5 points. Behind Tejas were Vibhushit, Anubhav Tuknayat, Bhupinder Singh, Swapan, Tarini Goyal, Pradip Singh, Prathima, Naresh Kumar, Dhruv, Rahul Arora, Arunima Goyal, Harish Chand, Vipan Negi, Lakshay B Singh and Snehlata with two points each.

Tanya Kaushal was in tow with 1.5 points followed by Ashwani Nirankari, Harinder Pal Singh, Shweta, Dalbir Singh, Kashish Kaushal, Manas Das, Shivika Jain, Manas Sharma, Nandini, Surindra Arya, Tejpal and Anhat as some of the players finally managed to open their account after a good performance on the penultimate day. Sunil Rana failed to open his account.

Point Position after Round 4:

4 Points : Himal Gusain and Sanjeev Biswas

3 Points : Abhinandan Vohra, Jaskeerat Singh Ahluwalia, Baijnath Prasad, Varun Utreja, Manu Aggarwal, Pradeep Singh Negi, Sunil Bansal, Karan Bhatti, Nitin, Simranjeet Kaur, and Rakesh Kochar.

2. 5 Points : Tejas Nagpal.

2 Points : Vibhushit, Anubhav Tuknayat, Bhupinder Singh, Swapan, Tarini Goyal, Pradip Singh, Prathima, Naresh Kumar, Dhruv, Rahul Arora, Arunima Goyal, Harish Chand, Vipan Negi, Lakshay B Singh, and Snehlata.

1.5 Points : Tanya Kaushal

1 Point : Ashwani Nirankari, Harinder Pal Singh, Shweta, Dalbir Singh, Kashish Kaushal, Manas Das, Shivika Jain, Manas Sharma, Nandinii, Surindra Arya, Tejpal, Anhat.

Zero Point : Sunil Rana