Date:08/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/08/stories/2008080857922100.htm

Sport - Sports : General

C. S. Sharma passes away

NEW DELHI: Former National ‘A’ player and noted chess administrator Chandra Shekhar Sharma passed away here on Wednesday night after a brief illness. He was 84.

A large number of friends and well-wishers from the Capital’s chess fraternity attended his cremation on Thursday morning at the Nigam Bodh Ghat. He is survived by five sons and three daughters.

Delhi champion in 1965, Mr. Sharma started playing chess at the age of 10 and last played in a tournament as an 82-year-old in the DCF Open here in March 2006.

As the secretary-general of the Botwinnik Chess Academy at the Russian Centre here since November 1980, Mr. Sharma was instrumental in holding four editions of the Bhilwara Grandmaster tournament including the one in December 1987 in which Viswanathan Anand made his second GM norm.

Several Delhi players like Sriram Jha, Vishal Sareen, G.B. Joshi, V.S. Negi, Tania Sachdev, Parimarjan Negi and Sahaj Grover, among others, were groomed by Mr. Sharma in their early years in the game. — Special Correspondent