Jharkhand's chess prodigy Adhiraj Mitra claimed the National Under-9 Open National School Online Chess Championship held on July 13 and 14 to once again stamp his authority across the board.

The 9-year-old from Jamshedpur scored 8.5 points out of 9 games, conceding a draw to the eventual runner-up in the last round. With this national title, Adhiraj will represent the country in the Asian School Chess Championship for Under-9 to be played from July 29 to 31.

"The final result after the clearance from fair play was announced on Saturday late night. Adhiraj has produced first performance at the national level, which is just a beginning what many are assured. We congratulate Adhiraj for the success and wish him the best for the Asian School Meet as well as for future events," said All Jharkhand hess Association (AJCA) secretary Neeraj Kumar Mishra, an International Master.

"Adhiraj is a smart player who makes intelligent moves. It's just a start. Watch out for this boy who is going to take long strides in chess," said Jayant Kumar Bhuyan, an international arbiter and chief coach at Tata hess Centre.

Adhiraj, a class IV student of Loyola School, is a trainee at Tata cradle. He bagged the under-18 title, under-12 and under-10 titles at the recently concluded chess festival organised by AJA, besides finishing runner-up in the under-14 age category.

A resident of Sonari, he is the youngest in Jharkhand to achieve an international rating. Adhiraj started playing chess two-and-a-half-years back and loves to beat players of higher age groups.

Adhiraj, who idolises Norwegian Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and is a big fan of Viswanathan Anand, devotes 10-12 hours for the games. "I feel happy about winning the national school title. I Will try to give my best in the Asian School Meet," he said.

The young talent had met Viswanathan Anand when the Grandmaster was in Jamshedpur to promote his book Mind Master in February last year. He had always wanted to play with the five-time world champion. The dream came true when Adhiraj went up to Anand at the JRD Tata Sports Complex where Vishy was meeting 200 chess enthusiasts and requested the Grandmaster for a game. To the boy’s utter delight, Anand said yes.

He gets the required support from his parents Uttam and Runa Mitra.