Senior National Chess Championship
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 12: Young Grand Master (GM) Arvind Chidambaram of Tamil Nadu maintained lead by scoring 5.5 points out of 6 after completion of 6 rounds in the ongoing Senior National Chess Championship, being played at Gurjar Desh Charitable Trust Channi Himmat, here today.
Sole leader Aravindh was held to draw by GM Anurag Mhamal of Goa who is sharing the second spot with 4 other players GM Vaibhav Suri, GM Sengupta Deep, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy and GM Vishnu Prasanna with 5 points each.
GM Anurag Mhamal of Goa drew with GM Aravindh Chithambaram of Tamil Nadu, while GM Vaibhav Suri of PSPB beat IM Stany of AAI and GM Sengupta Deep of PSPB defeated GM Laxman RR of RSPB. GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J of RSPB beat GM Neelotpal Das of PSPB, Neelash Saha of West Bengal lost to GM Vishnu Prasanna of Tamil Nadu, IM Rahul Srivathshav of Telangana drew with GM Swapnil S Dhopade of RSPB, IM Karthikeyan of RSPB drew with Sammed Jaykumar Shete of Maharashtra, IM Girinath PDS of RSPB drew with IM Vignesh NR of Tamil Nadu, Ritviz Parab of Goa drew with IM Akash of Tamil Nadu, IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy of PSPB drew with IM Rajesh V A V of Tamil Nadu, GM Gupta Abhijeet of PSPB drew with Saravana Krishnan of Tamil Nadu, IM Swayams Mishra of Air India beat FM Srihari L R of Tamil Nadu, IM Shyaamnikhil of RSPB drew with Srijit Paul of West Bengal, GM Thipsay Praveen of Maharashtra drew with FM Navalgund Niranjan of Karnataka, FM Wagh Suyog of Maharashtra drew with IM Gusain Himal of RSPB, Sankalp Gupta of Maharashtra lost to Harshavardhan of Tamil Nadu, Imocha Laishram of PSPB lost to IM Rathnakaran of RSPB, GM Karthikeyan Murali of PSPB drew with Baivab Mishra of Orissa, Prasanna of Tamil Nadu drew with GM Chanda Sandipan of West Bengal and Tiwari Arjun of RSPB lost to GM Venkatesh MR of PSPB.
Still 7 more rounds are to be played in this event.
Around 160 players from 27 States and 8 special units are participating including 19 Grand Masters and 20 International Masters and some Arjuna Awardee players. Total 50 titled players are 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.
Soham Kamotra, Sumit Grover, Khalid Amin, Ajit Singh, Ankush Bhardwaj, SP Sharma, Ashutosh Jamwal and Surinder are players from J&K in this event.
From J&K, State Champion Soham Kamotra and Khalid Amin are at 3 points each. J&K players are getting great exposure and experience in this very high quality event.
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.
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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