Date:19/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/19/stories/2008081956551900.htm

Sport - Chess

Favourites have an easy time

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: Round one of the Modern School International FIDE rating chess tournament saw favourites have an easy time. Though contests were longer in terms of moves, there was no cause for worry for any of the higher rated players in this unique rated tournament exclusively for school children at Nanganallur in Chennai on Monday.

Top seed Shyam Nikhil of Nagercoil defeated Praveen (Kar) in 36 moves with the white pieces playing against the Scandinavian defence. Second seed Senthilvel Nitin of Salem accounted for the Sri Lankan girls’ champion I.U. Basnayake in 60 moves. Ch. Divyasri won in 47 moves with white against M. Magesh.

GM Krishnan Sasikiran inaugurated the tournament.

Woman FIDE Master Pon N. Krithikha of Modern School won against Kavin in 68 moves with the black pieces using the Alekhine defence.

The results (round one): Shyam Nikhil bt Hilmi Parveen, I.U. Basnayake lost to S. Nitin, Pradeep Kumar bt M.K. Ilakiya, J. Jananishree lost to Ramnath Bhuvanesh, Dusthageer Ibrahim bt S. Jayakumar, B. Jeyassri lost to Anwesh Upadhyaya, J.S. Daklia bt Kalyana Raghavan, Kavin Naran lost to Pon N. Krithikha, N. Surendran bt A. Keerthi Vasan, J.S. Kirandev lost to Tejas Ravichandran, Ajay Srikanth bt Lakshmi Narasimhan, Lochan K Das lost to P. Lokesh, Navalgund Niranjan bt S. Lokeswar.