Ivana completes hattrick, Anirudh first in Boys!

Double World Under 8 Champion Ivana Furtado
created another record by winning the Goa Under 9
Girls category for the third consecutive time. In the
last round which was played at the BPS Club Margao,
she beat Gauri Hadkonkar to finish with
a perfect score of 5 out 5 possible points. Gauri
had to remain content with the second place in this
keenly contested event.

Ivana was felicitated on the occasion by reputed
table tennis coach Subodh Shevde and presented a
cash award as well. She will now represent Goa along
with 4 other girls - Gauri Hadkonkar (4 pts), Riya Sawant (4 pts),
Saloni Bandekar (4 pts) and Sakshi Prabhu (3 pts) -
in the upcoming National Under 9 Girls Chess
Championship to be played in New Delhi from the 28th
of April. Riya Sawant, who stood in the top 10 in two National
Championships in the same year, was also felicitated at
the prize distribution and given a cash award.

In the Boys section, it was Anirudh Bhat of Margao with 6 points who
stood first after drawing with Ritviz Parab in the crucial last round.
Anirudh built up a strong position and actually was slightly
better when Ritviz offered him a draw. He gleefully accepted
as he knew that half a point would suffice to give him the
title. The boys team that will represent Goa in the
upcoming Nationals includes Anirudh Bhat, Ritviz Parab (5.5 pts),
Saish Bandodkar (5.5 pts) and Snehil Shetty (5 pts).

The tournament was jointly organised by the Curchorem Chess
Club and BPS Sports Club. Santosh George, who is the Secretary
of BPS Sports Club, was the Chief Guest for the Prize Distribution.
Dattaram Pinge and Avinash Malvankar were the chief arbiters
and Standrik Colaco did the pairings. Incidentally, both the winners -
Ivana and Anirudh - are being coached by Dronacharya awardee
Raghunandan Gokhale.