Jain, 13, wins rapid chess title

Pune: No. 20 seed Kushagra Jain won the Shankar Dattatrey Samudra Memorial rapid chess tournament on Sunday. The 13-year-old tallied six points in seven rounds at Ashwamedh Hall off Karve Road.Top seed Vikramaditya Kulkarani, 41 years of age, also accumulated same number of points. But despite scoring an extra win, his Bucholz tiebreak score was inferior to that of Jain’s.Vikas Sharma finished sole third with 5.5 points.The title is somewhat creditable compared to the other local tournaments for two reasons: there were enough number of rounds (seven for 40-odd players) and the entries were restricted to player rated Elo 1251 or above.Jain (Elo 1472) came up with a rating performance of Elo 2112 and could have added 160-plus Elos to his strength. However, the one-day tournament wasn’t a FIDE-rated event. The time control was 15 minutes and 10 seconds’ increment.Jain defeated top seed Vikramaditya Kulkarni in the fifth round. He also made the best use of getting second successive white in the following round against Siddhanth Salunke (Elo 1451). He held second seed Gaurav Bakliwal with black pieces in the final round.Pune beat CSN by 7 wickets Pune registered a seven-wicket win over Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in their Maharashtra Premier League (MPL) match at the MCA Stadium in Gahunje on Sunday. After restricting their opponent to a modest 146-8 in 20 overs, Pune chased down the target in 16.2 overs with skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad 29* (18b, 1x4, 2x6s) scoring the winning runs.Pacer Piyush Salvi (2-36 in 4 overs), left-arm spinner Rohan Damle (2-28), Aditya Daware (1-24 in 2), offie Yash Kshirsagar (1-14 in 3) and left-arm pacer Sachin Bhosale (1-8 in 3) helped their team win.Bhosale castled Murtaza Trunkwala for a golden duck in the first over. Salvi then sent back Hrishikesh Daund (4, 5b) in the second over.Wicketkeeper Saurabh Nawale 31 (23b, 3x4s, 2x6s) and Om Bhosale 46 (33b, 5x4s, 1x6) took the team total to 50 but once Nawale was dismissed by Daware, the wickets kept fallig at a regular interval.Pavan Shah (53) and Kshirsagar (35) helped Pune chase the target. This is Pune’s second win on the trot.Brief scores: CSN: 146 for 8 (Om Bhosale 46, Saurabh Nawale 31; Rohan Damle 2-28, Piyush Salvi 2-36) lost to Pune: 147-3 in 16.2 (Pawan Shah 53, Yash Kshirsagar 35, Hitesh Walunj 1-21, Rameshwar Daud 1-21) by 7 wickets.