A lot at stake for aspiring Indians

By Manuel Aaron

CHENNAI, AUG. 12. Fluttering flags of six participating nations will welcome players and spectators as they arrive at the venue for the Pentamedia Grandmaster chess tournament which will be inaugurated tomorrow at 4:15 p.m.

The tournament, which is FIDE category 11, is one of the strongest Grandmaster tournaments ever to be held in India. The first round of this 13-player round robin will begin on the 14th August and end on the 27th. Those who score at least eight points from the maximum twelve will achieve a Grandmaster norm. The total prize fund is $ 6,000 with the first prize being $ 2,000.

The venue of this championship is the beautiful, air- conditioned auditorium in the Pentamedia Graphics Complex at Kelambaakam. This is situated on the southern edge of Kelambaakam on the way to Tiruporur along the Old Mahabalipuram Road.

The organisers are providing free transport for spectators desiring to visit the venue. These buses will start at the Pentamedia Office next to Liberty Theatre at Kodambaakam at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. Buses will also leave at 10 a.m. on the 13th and 14th. From the 15th onwards the buses will leave at 8:30 a.m.

The drawing of the lots for pairing will be done at the inaugural ceremony on Sunday evening. The Chief Guest at this ceremony will be Mr. K. Ashok Varadhan Shetty, IAS, Secretary, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's Secretariat. Mr. P.T. Ummer Koya, Vice President of FIDE will be the Guest of Honour. Mr. K. Srinivasan, Director, Pentamedia Graphics will preside over the function.

The Bangladesh International Master Reefat bin Sattar is the first to arrive. He arrived last night with his wife. Reefat has a FIDE-rating of 2467.

Grandmasters Saidali Yuldachev of Uzbekistan (rating 2515) and Russian Grandmaster Alexander Fominyk (2594) will be arriving via Delhi and Hyderabad on Sunday. Fominyk is well-known to Indian chess as he has been recently playing in quite a few Indian international tournaments with great success.

The Indian team to the Chess Olympiad which is being trained by GM Evgeny Vladimirov of Kazakhstan at Calicut will arrive on Sunday morning by train. The arriving Indians are: Grandmasters Abhijit Kunte (2556), K. Sasikiran (2573), Dibyendu Barua (2502) and International Masters Surya Sekhar Ganguly (2498), D.V. Prasad (2431), P. Harikrishna (2500) and Sandipan Chanda (2446). Vladimirov is the highest-rated player in the tournament. He is a one time `second' of Garry Kasparov.

The Indian Bank star, G.B. Prakash (2429) is already in town. The Iranian International Master Ghaem Maghami Ehsan (2488) will arrive only on the 14th. He will be accompanied by his mother and a coach. Maghami already has a GM norm and will be looking for his second norm.

Along with the Grandmaster tournament, an ONGC- sponsored FIDE- Rating Open chess tournament will also be held at the venue. Participants will be taken by buses at 10 a.m. from the Pentamedia office to Kelambaakam on the 13th and 14th.

The last time a Grandmaster tournament was held in Chennai it was sponsored by Sakthi Finance and won by Tony Miles of England. From that Category Nine event, only two players are playing this time. They are Grandmaster Barua and IM D.V. Prasad. Prasad made a GM norm last time but has been unsuccessful in gaining any further norms in the last four years though he has been maintaining his form and his rating. Other Indians with GM norms are Sandipan Chanda of Goodricke Chess Academy and G.B. Prakash of Indian Bank.

While in 1996, most of the Indians in the GM tournament had ratings close to 2400, this time the lowest-rated player is on 2429. This gives rise to reasonable hopes that GM norms will be made in this tournament. So far every International chess tournament held in Chennai, right down from 1960, has produced norms or international titles.

The venue at Kelambaakam was a beehive of activity this evening with the organising secretary, Mr. D.V. Sundar of Sports Promotion Foundation, taking care of every minute detail. When spectators troop in for the inauguration, they are in for a very pleasant surprise.

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