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Asian jr. championship begins today

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: Indian dominance is expected to continue and be complete in the Sri Sai Ram Engineering-sponsored Asian junior chess championship that will start at the Hotel Vijay Park, here on Friday.

The organisers, the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association (TNSCA) and Sports Promotion Foundation, confirmed that a total of 68 boys and 38 girls will take part in this nine-round Swiss format contest that will conclude on December 15.

Both the winners of Asian junior championship in Mumbai last year, P. Karthikeyan of Chennai and Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata, will defend their titles.

“In fact, all medal winners of last time are competing this time,” said K. Muralimohan, General Secretary of the TNSCA.

There are 55 Indian boys and 33 Indian girls in the starting line-up. Players from eight nations will be in action: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Iran, Tajikistan, Nepal and Maldives besides India.

Prominent players are six International Masters, S.P. Sethuraman, B. Adhiban, Deep Sengupta, Ashwin Jayaram, M. Shyam Sundar and Karthikeyan in the boys’ section.

Kruttika Nadig, Padmini Rout, Kiran Manisha Mohanty, two Mongolian players and Mary Ann Gomes are some of the top names in the girls’ category.

The chief arbiter is Prof. Anantharam.

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