The 15-year-old Rajpara had earned the first norm while playing at the fourth Kolkata Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament last year.
Gujarat’s chess prodigy Ankit Rajpara inched closer to the title of International Master (IM) on Monday. His phenomenal run in the ongoing Chennai Open International Chess Grandmasters tournament earned the Mehsana boy his second norm.
The 15-year-old Rajpara had earned the first norm while playing at the fourth Kolkata Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament last year.
“It’s a great feeling. I am very satisfied with my performance,” Rajpara told DNA from Chennai on Monday. He still needs one more norm to become IM.
Rajpara was confident of a good show going into the tournament. Intense practice sessions won him fruitful results when he recorded two big victories over seasoned masters. He checkmated Saidali (2519) from Uzbekistan and IM MS Tejkumar (2435).
According to Rajpara, his match against Tejkumar was very tense. “It was my toughest match till date. But I survived. However, the victory over GM Iuldachev Saidali was the sweetest and most memorable of all,” said Ankit.
Ankit drew four matches which included an encounter with GM Andrey Gutov (2444) from Russia, IM Bitoon Richard (2458) and two Indians, IM K Rathnakaran (2402) and C Praveen Kumar (2421). After nine rounds he has six points out of a possible
nine. Ankit had his share of hard times when GM Kravtsiv Martyn of Ukraine got the better of him.
Interestingly, the 15-year-old started on a faulty note when his laptop went on the blink on the first day itself. “Due to a technical snag with the laptop, I had to skip practice for the first three days. But luckily everything went right and now I am on cloud nine,” said Rajpara. With two more rounds left, Rajpara is expecting to produce some more magic.
Rajpara will return to his studies before fighting for the third and final norm which will earn him the IM title. “It will be exam time soon, so no competition. In April-May when Mumbai and Delhi will host similar tournaments, I will resume my battle,”
he said.
A player with less ELO rating has to earn required points while playing against title holders - GMs and IMs. And in India, very competitions are held where GMs and IMs take part.
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