Lalith Babu crowned national chess champion

PSPB Grandmaster Lalith Babu was crowned the undisputed champion after Odisha GM Debashis Das defeated challenger Aravindh Chithambaram of Tamil Nadu in the National Premier Chess Championship here today.
Babu scored nine points in the tournament organised by All Bihar Chess Association.
Aravindh scored 8.5 points to finish second.
Defending champion Karthikeyan could muster only the third position with 7.5 points.
Debashis and S L Narayanan of Kerala were placed fourth and fifth with same number of points.
Aravindh's preferred Kings Indian defence was not beneficial to him, as Debashis attained a good positional advantage on the 12th move itself.

To add to the woes, Aravindh's bad move of Ne5 on 18th move, for which he consumed just 18 seconds, gifted a winning position to his opponent.

When Debashis' c6- pawn attacked Aravindh's bishop, the latter's ploy of attacking the queen not only failed miserably, but also proved to be fatal. Debashis demolished Aravindh in just 28 moves.
In an equal position arising out of the Catalan opening, Babu surprised everyone by allowing GM Swapnil Dhopade to repeat the moves and get away with a draw claim in just 14 moves, shortest in terms of both moves and time.
Later, a relieved Babu admitted that the pressure on him was too much and he boldly took the risk of splitting the point.