Gogineni Rohit of Andhra Pradesh won the National Under-17 Boys title on better tie-break than S.Arun Prasad of Tamil Nadu after both scored 8/9 in a 88-player event. P.Uthra of Tamil Nadu won the Girls section with 7.5/9 after she finished half a point ahead of P.Lakshmi Sahiti of Andhra Pradesh. Both the champions remained undefeated.

The event was organised by the Fischer Chess Club and Ahmedabad City Chess Association from Sep 23 to Oct 1 at Ahmedabad. The venue was the Karnavati Club and the chief arbiter was Vimal Srivastava.

Top seed Rohit received a trophy and Rs.12,500 cash prize while Uthra received Rs.8,000 besides a trophy. It was the 16th edition of the National U-17 Championship. The winners will represent India in the next World U-18 Championship to be held at Russia.

In the valedictory ceremony on October 1, D.V.Sundar, Secretary, AICF and Manubhai Soni, the sponsor, distributed the cash prizes totalling Rs.75,500. Of the 122 players (88 boys, 34 girls), 65 were FIDE rated. Mary Ann Gomes and Kruttika Nadig played in the boys section.

Gujarat State Chess Association Secretary, Mayur Patel welcomed D.V.Sundar at the closing ceremony. Sundar later presented the Gujarat Gaurav Award to Valay Parikh.

Boys: 1-2 G.Rohit (AP), S.Arun Prasad (TN) 8/9, 3 S.P.Sethuraman (TN) 7, 4-7 T.Purushottam (AP), V.Somesh (AP), Jain Dreyans Kaklia (Chh), Sriram Sarja (Kar) 6.5 each, 8-17 Rahul Sangma (Bih), Aswin Jayaram (TN), Akshat Khamparia (MP), R.Arun Karthik (TN), Soumitra Mujumdar (Mah), T.U.Navin Kanna (TN), Jayankur Chougale (Mah), Vedprakash Sinha (Bih), T.V.R.Vijayaraghavan (AP), Mary Ann Gomes (Ben) 6 each...88 players. 

Girls: 1 P.Uthra (TN) 7.5, 2-3 P.Lakshmi Sahiti (AP), M.Rajadharsini (TN) 7 each, 4 H.Soumya (TN) 6.5, 5-6 Shalini Srivastava (Jha), P.Sivasankari (TN) 6 each, 7-11 Kiran M Mohanty (Ori), Soumya Swaminathan (Mah), Devangi Patankar (Mah), Y.Niharika (AP), S.V.Sathyapriya (TN) 5.5 each...34 players.

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