Jaipur. Grand Master Mitrabha Guha of West Bengal performed brilliantly and won the title in the Paheli Open FIDE Rated Rapid Chess Tournament 2025 held on 25-26 January at Hotel Amar Palace, Ajmer Road in Jaipur. He earned 8.5 points with 8 wins and 1 draw in the competition of 9 rounds. Mitrabha was awarded a cheque of ₹ 75,000 and a trophy as the winner.
International Master Aditya Dhingra of Haryana and International Master Aryan Varshney of Delhi scored 8 points. However, Aditya finished second and Aryan third on the basis of better technical score. Aditya was awarded a cash prize of ₹ 50,000 and Aryan ₹ 30,000 and a trophy. Fourth place was secured by FIDE Master Wagh Suyog of Maharashtra, fifth place by International Master Aaradhya Garg of Delhi and sixth place by Grand Master RR Laxman. The tournament’s sponsor, Health and Wellness CEO, Himmat Singh gave the information.
Program Organizing Secretary, Jayendra Chaturvedi told that in the rating category prizes in 1651-1900, Shejal Sahil Sanjay of Maharashtra came first (₹ 50,000), Shubham Shukla of Punjab came second (₹ 30,000), Spandan Srivastava of Delhi came third (₹ 20,000). 1401-1650: Rudradaman Mertiya of Jaipur came first (₹ 50,000), Supratim Bhadra II of Delhi came second (₹ 30,000) and Raj Prakhar of Haryana came third (₹ 20,000).
In the best women participants, Aradhya Upadhyay of Rajasthan came first; Yasha Kalwani came second and Ai Sarvata of Tamil Nadu came third. Rosh Jain of Delhi came first in Under-15. Naitik Jain of Haryana came first in Under-13; In Under-11, Reyansh Midha of Haryana; Abhivadan Bhaduka of Rajasthan in Under-9; Veethika Kaushal of Rajasthan in Under-7 got the first place.
Chaturvedi further informed that some special prizes were also given in which the best Rajasthan players were Vikramaditya Mukhija first, Rishen Jilova second, and Pratik Chaudhary third. The best Jaipur players were Raj Kapoor first, Bhavya Gupta second, and Akhilesh Jakhar third.
A total of 385 players participated in the competition, including 2 Grand Masters, 3 International Masters, and 220 International rated players. The main technical judge of this competition with a total prize money of ₹ 7.5 lakh was International Orbiter Deepak Chauhan of Maharashtra. The prize distribution was done by Grandmaster RR Laxman, Mitrabha Guha, Ashok Bhargava, Krishna Gopal Sharma, Rahul Pachauri (Zonal Manager, Care Health Insurance) and RK Vyas. It is noteworthy that the tournament was organized under the aegis of Just Health and Wellness (JHW), Rajasthan Chess Association and All India Chess Federation.
