Senior National Chess Championship
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 14: Three Grand Masters Vaibhav Suri, Aravindh Chithambaram, Sengupta Deep and International Master (IM) Stany lead jointly with 6.5 each in the ongoing Senior National Chess Championship, being played at Gurjar Desh Charitable Trust, here.
On the second spot, seven players–GM Anurag Mhamal, GM Tejas Bakre, GM Abhijeet Gupta, GM Deepan Chakraborty, GM Vishnu Prasanna, GM Praveen Thipsay and IM Nitiin are with 6.0 points each.
GM Vishnu Prasanna of Tamil Nadu drew with GM Aravindh Chithambaram, IM Stany of AAI beat GM Anurag Mhamal of Goa, GM Vaibhav Suri of PSPB beat GM Swapnil S Dhopade of RSPB, GM Sengupta Deep of PSPB beat GB Harshavardhan of Tamil Nadu, GM Gupta Abhijeet of PSPB beat Sammed Jayakumar Shete, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy of RSPB beat IM Rajesh of Tamil Nadu, IM Karthikeyan of RSPB drew with Viani Antonio Dcunha of Karnataka, GM Thipsay Praveen of Maharashtra beat IM Vignesh of Tamil Nadu, IM Rahul Srivatshav of Telangana lost to IM Nitin of RSPB, IM Rathnakaran of RSPB drew with IM Akash of Tamil Nadu, Ritviz Parab of Goa lost to GM Bakre Tejas of Air India, FM Navalgund Niranjan of Karnataka drew with GM Neelotpal Das of PSPB, GM Sundararajan Kidambi of Tamil Nadu beat Mahindrakar Indrajeet of Maharashtra, Sankalp Gupta of Maharashtra drew with GM Karthikeyan Murali of PSPB, IM Navin Kanna of DASCB drew with GM Chanda Sandipan of West Bengal, IM Girinath of RSPB lost to GM Karthik Venkataraman of Andhra Pradesh, IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy lost to IM Krishna of RSPB, IM Swayams Mishra of Air India drew with IM Saravana Krishnan of Tamil Nadu, IM Shyaam Nikhil of RSPB drew with FM Dushyant Sharma of Punjab and GM Laxman of RSPB drew with GM Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi of RSPB.
Still 5 more rounds are to be played in this event. Around 160 players including 19 Grand Masters and 20 International Masters and some Arjuna Awardee players from 27 States and 8 special units–Air India, Railways, Defence, Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, LIC, etc. are participating in this event. Total 50 titled players are also playing in this historical and strongest ever national of India till date.
All J&K Chess Association under the aegis of All India Chess Federation is organizing this event. This is also a Asian Zonal 3.7 event as India is a separate zone in Asia. Top 10 board games were shown live on internet by expert Ganesh Babu of Tamil Nadu.
Total prizes of Rs 20 lakhs will be distributed among top 10 players and first prize being Rs 5 lakh. Total 13 rounds will be played. Selected players will lead the Asian Zone 3.7 in world events. All States have been allowed to field 4 entries while being host, J&K has been allowed to field 8 players.
Soham Kamotra of J&K is at 4.5 points after 7 rounds, while Sumit Grover and Ajit Singh are at 4 points in this high voltage event. Other participants from J&K are Khalid Amin, SP Sharma, Ashutosh Jamwal, Surinder and Ankush Bhardwaj.
The event is played under Fide laws of chess under Swiss System. International Arbiter Dharmendra Kumar is the Chief Arbiter of this event who is supported by seven Deputy Arbiters.
Dr Daud Iqbal Baba, Director, Directorate of Sports and Physical Education, Jammu University inaugurated the round 8 and wished good luck to the players.
The matches are conducted under the overall supervision of AJKCA President Atul Kumar Gupta. All J&K Chess Association members present in today matches include AR Wani, Ashiq Ahmad Kolu, Baldev Raj, Taranvir Singh, Kuljeet Jamwal, Farooq Ahmad, Mohammad Shafi, Khalid Amin, Raj Kumar, Vikas Nanda, Rakesh Gupta and Mohit Bharti.
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