Nat’l junior title for GM Grover

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Sahaj Grover

India’s rising chess star, Grandmaster Sahaj Grover of Delhi, won the National Junior Chess Championship defeating overnight leader Debashish Das of Orissa in the 11th and final round in Ajmer on Wednesday.

Grover finished with 8.5 points, half a point ahead of Das, N. Srinath, Vidit Gujarathi, Anurag Mahamal, Dipptayan Ghosh and G.A. Stany.
Grover, who turned 17 during the course of the championship, delivered when it mattered the most as Das was no match for the wily ways of his younger opponent. This victory for Grover comes soon after the completion of his Grandmaster norm at the World Junior Chess Championship in Athens earlier this year.
Grover lost one game, won seven and drew the remaining three en route to the title. The loss to International Master Aditya Udeshi in the fourth round was an upset for the Delhi boy but he staged a remarkable comeback against Das in the last round.
Playing white, Grover launched an offence very early with a queen pawn and ripped apart the centre with a brilliant knight sacrifice. Das tried hard to figure out an escape route but there was none. Grover paralysed his opponent’s forces in no time and forced Das to resign.
“This has been a decent result after I was going haywire midway through the tournament. Even before the last round I was not sure if would win the championship. Despite winning the last round, it was possibly thanks to some positive results for me on other boards,” said Grover after his triumph. A student at the Kulachi Hansraj Model School in Delhi, he singled out his game against Das as his best effort.
“The way I had been playing before the last round, I was not convinced with myself, but then I had analysed this line for some time and when Debashish went for it, I knew it would be at least a keen tussle. And then it just went my way”, Grover noted. A former under-10 world champion, Grover was also a bronze medalist at the 2011 world junior championship.