Saptarishi Roy of Goodricke National Chess Academy, Kolkata, and R Priya of Tamil Nadu won the boys and girls' titles respectively in the 13th National under-18 chess championship in Chennai on Tuesday.
Both champions tallied a total of 7.5 points. Saptarishi Roy tied for first place and Priya was on top after both outmaneuvered their opponents in the ninth and final round.
In a two-way tie for the championship in the boys' section, Roy relegated Abhishek Das of Jharkhand to second spot on account of a better progressive score.
International Master Deepan Chakravorthy took third place.
The boys' champion carried home Rs 9,500. Priya was richer by Rs 6,000. Both Saptarishi and Priya will represent India in the World championship in Greece.
S Nabeela Farheen and Sowmuya Swaminathan (Maharashtra) secured seven points each and finished second and third respectively after a tie-break.
Today's final round saw former national under-16 champion Roy carving out a neat win over former world under-12 gold medallist Deep Sengupta of Jharkhand in a nailbiting finish, which started from the French Defence.
Roy, playing white, put pressure on his rival through fine manouvering of his major pieces, forcing Deep Sengupta to resign after 40 moves.
In a Queen's gambit declined game, Abishek Das made short work of C Praveen Kumar of Tamil Nadu to win the board in 33 moves.
In another keenly-fought match between Amruta Mokal and Priya, the latter, playing black, preferred a Petroff defence.
After a balanced middle game, both players raced towards the fag end of the session. With only a few minutes left on their clocks, Priya prepared a mating net for White's King. As checkmate was imminent in the next move, Amruta resigned on the 46th move.
In a crucial final round encounter, former national under-14 champion Nabeela Farheen of AICF scored a fluent win over Ishwarya Shobana of Tamil Nadu in 35 moves, to grab the second spot.
