Purushottam and Rishon lead in National Amateur Chess Tournament

8 Bhadra, Mechnagar. Former Nepali champion 1937 CM and 1862 Rishon Thapa is leading by 3 points in the 6th National Amateur Chess Championship for up to 2000 level jointly organized by Nepal Intelligence Federation and Jhapa Night Chess Club.

CM Purushottam Chaulagai defeated 1810-class player Vishwa Vijay Ghimire in the first round, 1796-class player Neelam Basnet in the second round and former Nepali champion 1885-class player CM Naveen Tandukar in the third round.

Young player Rishon Thapa defeated Narayan Rai of 1714, Sindira Joshi of 1708 and Chudamani Kulung of 1817. Tomorrow, Rishon will face black player Gotiwat Purushottam in the fourth round.

Bikas Mainali in 1891, former champion CM Krishna Thapa in 1885 and Redet Ashish Phunyal in 1896, who aimed to compete in the Asian Amateur Championship in Dubai as amateur champions, finished tied for second place with 2 wins, 1 tie and 2.5 points.

Competing in the same group, Nepali female champion Sindira Joshi did not fare well, scoring 1708. An important player who trained with a grandmaster at the Hungarian Chess Olympiad in September was defeated by a male player who was rated higher than her.

Pooja Bhandari, a female chess player with a rating of 1687, performed averagely in the Chess Olympiad organized by the World Mind Federation. He achieved this by defeating the young rising star Arena Candidate Master with a rating of 1700 in the third round. Similarly, she tied with another young player Vishnulal Limbu in the second round. Pooja scored 2.5 points.

After the fourth round, players with ratings below 1700, Ranjit Rai with rating 1699, Kapil Gurung with rating 1626 and Shiv Kumar Bik with rating 1648, remained in the joint first position with 4 points. Similarly, Govindaman Shrestha with rating 1694 and Krishna Prasad Sigdel with rating 1598 remained in the joint second position with 3 wins, 1 draw and 3.5 points.

The A-group competition of the 6th National Amateur Chess consists of 7 rounds, and the B-group competition under 1700 consists of 9 rounds. Tamrakar said that the winners of the competition that ends on the 10th will receive cash and 282,000 prize money.