Mangalore student wins silver medal in Asian School Chess Championship

Mangalore Jan 9: Nihal Manjunath student of Derik's Chess School has won the Silver medal in the Under 13 category in the Asian School Chess Championship organised by The Chess Federation of Sri Lanka from 3rd to 9th January 2008 at Kandy. Nihal Manjunath scored 6.5 points in 9 rounds and was placed Runner Up.

Nihal Manjunath was accompanied by his traner Deric Pinto at Kandy.

Nihal Manjunath is studying in 8th standard in Lourdes Central School, Mangalore and is son of Dr. Manjunath Shetty and Dr.Veena Manjunath.

It can be recalled that DCS students Ankitha R and Adith Jagadish had taken part in the Asian School Chess Championship in 2006 at Singapore and won laurels for India.

M’lore boy tops in state chess tourney

MANGALORE: Nihal Manjunath clinched the title in the State Under-13 Boys Chess Championship while Shristi J Shetty from Shimoga won in the Under-13 Girls category of the tourney organised by the South Kanara District Chess Association (SKDCA) at the Karnataka Bank Employees Association Hall in the city on Sunday.

Nihal Manjunath of Derick Chess School (DCS) secured an unbeaten 6.5 points in seven rounds to remain on top.

Gahan M G was placed second and in girls category, eighth seeded Vanessa D’Souza bagged the runner-up place with 4.5 points in six rounds.

Two top players in each category will represent state in a national under-13 chess championship (Boys at Delhi and Girls at Mumbai). SKDCA denied any biased seedings in the tournament.

SKDCA president M S Gururaj stated that the seeding was given based on the details of previous achievements of Vanessa D’Souza furnished in an entry form by her parents.

The tournament, the press release informs, is being conducted according to the accepted FIDE rules. Parents can lodge a complaint against the association to either state body (United Karnataka Chess Association) or All India Chess Federation in Chennai or FIDE.

Andhra Chess champion feted

Kakinada,INDIA : District Collector M. Subrahmanyam has complimented national under-7 chess champion Yejjavarapu Grahesh, a second standard student of Future Kids school, Rajahmundry, for bringing laurels to East Godavari district. A cheque for Rs.5,000 was presented to Grahesh as incentive at a function held at the Collector’s camp office here on Saturday. Grahesh clinched the title at the championships held in Lucknow in October and was qualified to participate in the world under-8 championships.

Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)

Mangalore, Nov 18: Top seed Adith Jagadish (4) of the city upset fourth seed Nihal Manjunath (5) also of the city, to emerge as the sole leader at the end of five rounds in the State under-13 chess tournament for boys here on Saturday, Nov 17.

Trailing behind Nihal were Antonio Viani D’Cunha (4.5) and Gahan M.G. (4.5), who split points in their fifth round.

In the girls’ segment, top seed Shristi J. Shetty (4) of Shimoga emerged the sole leader with a one point advantage at the end of four rounds.

Lenita Mathias (3) is trailing Shristi in the leader board.

34th Women’s National A Chess Championship of India

5 Share lead after round 7

7 rounds gone in the Women’s National A and the the tournament is yet to find a sole leader in any of those. This speaks of the strength of this edition of the 34th Women’s National A Chess Championship organised by Symbiosis Spa Chess School at Symbiosis Center for Health Care Campus, Range Hills Road, Kirkee, Pune.

IM Dronavalli Harika played in an attacking mode right from the beginning against WIM Kiran Monisha Mohanty but yet could not win. When she gave up a pawn in the middle game it almost seemed like a ‘déjà vu’ of the first round where both players had castled on opposite sides. It seemed the same would repeat today but Kiran managed to hold a draw.

Leaders: Harika Dronavalli , Kiran Mohanty , Swati Ghate, Tania Sachdev, Mary Ann Gomes

Results-: round 7

Harika Dronavalli 5 drew with Kiran Mohanty 5;

Swati Ghate 5 drew with Tania Sachdev 5;

Ramaswamy Aarthie 4 lost to Mary Ann Gomes 5;

Soumya Swaminathan 4.5 drew with Nisha Mohota 4;

P Priya 4.5 beat Eesha Karavade 3.5;

Amruta Mokal 4 beat Padmini Rout 3;

Sai Meera 3 lost to Pon. Krithika 4;

S Harini 3 lost to Nimmy George;

Anuprita Patil 3.5 drew with S Nabeela Farheen 3.5;

Rucha Pujari 3 drew with Divyasri Ch 3.5;

R Preethi 2.5 drew with S Athirai 2.5;

Swati Mohota 3 beat M R Sangeetha 2;

Baisakhi Das 1 lost to P Uthra 3;

Dhyani Dave 2.5 drew with C H Savetha 1.5

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Rank	SNo.		Name	Rtg	FED	Pts	BH.	RtgØ
1	3	WGM	Tania Sachdev	2413	IND	5	26½	2289
2	6	WGM	Swathi Ghate	2316	IND	5	26	2240
3	1	IM	Harika Dronavalli	2480	IND	5	25	2269
4	7	WIM	Kiran Manisha Mohanty	2263	IND	5	24½	2278
5	8	WIM	Gomes Mary Ann	2262	IND	5	24	2200
6	9	WIM	Soumya Swaminathan	2244	IND	4½	23½	2218
7	15		Priya P	2129	IND	4½	23	2203
8	5	WGM	Ramaswamy Aarthie	2317	IND	4	26	2260
9	2	WGM	Mohota Nisha	2416	IND	4	24½	2221
10	14	WFM	Pon N Krithika	2140	IND	4	24	2174
11	12		Nimmy A G	2196	IND	4	23½	2170
12	13		Amrutha Mokal	2159	IND	4	23½	2151
13	4	WGM	Karavade Eesha	2331	IND	3½	28	2294
14	22		Anuprita Patil	2060	IND	3½	25	2209
15	20		Syed Nabeela Farheen	2093	IND	3½	21	2140
16	25		Divyasri Ch	2050	IND	3½	18½	2103
17	11	WFM	Meera Sai	2205	IND	3	28	2275
18	10		Padmini Rout	2226	IND	3	23	2181
19	23		Harini S	2060	IND	3	22	2145
20	21	WFM	Pujari Rucha	2061	IND	3	21	2114
21	18		Swati Mohota	2112	IND	3	19	2094
22	24		Uthra P	2055	IND	3	15	2066
23	16		Preethi R	2125	IND	2½	19½	2114
24	26	WFM	Dave Dhyani	2002	IND	2½	19	2107
25	27		Athirai S	2000	IND	2½	17½	2088
26	17		Sangeetha M R	2118	IND	2	21	2144
27	28		Savetha C H	1968	IND	1½	18	2067
28	19		Baisakhi Das	2101	IND	1	18	2090

Kiran Mohanty defeats Eesha Karavade

Kiran Monisha Mohanty pulled off an upset win over WGM Eesha Karavde while Swati Ghate beat Nisha Mohota to join Tania Sachdev and Dronavalli Harika in lead at the end of the 6^th round of the 34th Women’s National A Chess Championship organised by Symbiosis Spa Chess School at Symbiosis Center for Health Care Campus, Range Hills Road, Kirkee, Pune.

Asian Individual Women’s Champion Tania and Asian Zonal Women’s Champion Harika probably showed mutual respect and employed the ‘draw with the best and beat the rest’ theory when they agreed to share the point after just 8 moves at the halfway stage of the tournament. But the same theory did not work for Pune’s WGM Eesha Karavade who after drawing her games against WGMs in the last three consecutive rounds lost to a lower seeded rival Kiran Mohanty. Mohanty has so far has had a very impressive run. She also beat WGM Swati Ghate in the third round. Today in a Spanish Anti-Marshal variation Eesha playing Black sacrificed a pawn which according to Mohanty was not the right thing to do. Kiran maneuvered her pieces to attacking positions and when the moment was right struck some deadly blows which left Eesha with no options but to resign. WGM Nisha Mohota blundered a pawn against Swati Ghate and after that Swati made no mistake to bring home the full point.

Padmini Rout erred from the White side of the Sicilian Rauzer variation against WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy. According to Aarthie Padmini’s 18^th move Bd3 was not such a good try for advantage while her 21^st move was a gross blunder. Aarthie sacrificed material and took great advantage of Padmini’s exposed King position to win a Queen and soon the game. WGM Mary Ann Gomes beat Sai Meera after both players made a lot of errors in mutual time trouble. WIM Soumya Swaminathan made good use of the opposite coloured Bishops position on the board to create undefendable mating threats and win the game against Nimmy George.

Pune’s Amruta Mokal drew with Ch. Divyashri while Anuprita Patil held Pon. Krithika to a draw.

Games

Results:Round6

Tania Sachdev 4.5 drew with Harika Dronavalli 4.5;
Nisha Mohota 3.5 lost to Swati Ghate 4.5;
Kiran Manisha Mohanty 4.5 beat Eesha Karavade 3.5;
Padmini Rout 3 lost to Ramaswamy Aarthie 4;
Mary Ann Gomes 4 beat Sai Meera Ravi 3;
Nimmy George 3 lost to Soumya Swaminathan 4;
Divyasri Ch 3 drew with Amruta Mokal 3;
Pon. Krithika 3 drew with Anuprita Patil 3;
Rucha Pujari 2.5 lost to P Priya 3.5;
S Nabeela Farheen 3 beat R Preethi 2;
M R Sangeetha 2 lost to S Harini 3;
Uthra P 2 drew with Dhyani Dave 2;
Savetha C H 1 lost to Swati Mohota 2;
S Athirai 2 beat Baisakhi Das 1

34th Women’s National A Chess Championship of India

08.11.2007 – This event sees the cream of Indian women's chess battling it out in Puna. Top seed Dronavalli Harika, rated 2480, is the overall number 15 player in the country, Nisha Mohota, 2416, and Tania Sachdev, 2413 follow close behind. The three top players will represent India at the next Olympiad. Pictorial report

34th Women’s National A Chess Championship of India

This event is being held from November 4th to 15th 2007. The event is organised by Symbiosis Spa Chess School at Symbiosis Center for Health Care Campus in Pune, India, with technical assistance being provided by Buddhibal Kreeda Trust.

The tournament, which includes the cream of Indian women’s chess among its participants, offers a record prize money of Rs.250,000 (Euro 4,350 or US $6,400). The top three players from this tournament will be selected to represent India at the World Chess Olympiad to be held at Dresden, Germany in 2008, while the top six players will comprise the Indian women’s team for various other international events.

The inaguration function was held under the title theme "Fountain of Innovation"

The seeded players had an easy outing in the first round, the only minor upset being provided by local girl Anuprita Patil who held WGM Mary Ann Gomes to a draw with the white pieces. IM Dronavalli Harika looked in some trouble as she lost a pawn in the middlegame, but her opponent P. Priya made a series of errors, Harika won an exchange and finished it off the game without any further hiccups.

Tania Sachdev, 2413 vs M.R. Sangeetha, 2118 in round one (Sachdev won)

The Women's International Master beat her untitled opponent in this round one game

In the second round two leaders with full score emerged: Dronavalli Harika of Andhra Pradesh and Eesha Karavade of Maharashtra. WGM Tania Sachdev of Indian Airlines played the black side of Sicilian Paulsen opening against Nimmy George. White tried to create attacking threats on the kingside but Tania did well to neutralize those and even won a couple of pawns. But Nimmy had some compensation and in mutual time trouble Tania failed to produce accurate moves and had be content with a draw by giving perpetual checks.

WGM and chess star Tania Sachdev with problems against untitled Nimmy

Top seed IM Dronavalli Harika needed 78 moves to defeat her untitled opponent in round two

After three rounds there are five players in the lead with 2.5 points: Harika, Sachdev, Manisha Kiran, Eesha Karavade and R. Aarthie. The games are being shown live on the official tournament web site.

Grahesh, Madhumita win chess titles

Lucknow,INDIA, November 5 Andhra Pradesh’s Y Grahesh and Madhumita bagged the winner’s titles in the boys’ and girls’ section, respectively, in the XXIst National Under-7 Chess Championship that came to a close at the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Stadium, here on Monday.

The prize distribution ceremony was held later in the day. Dr Kashmir Singh (IPS) was the chief guest on the occasion.

The points’ positions after the final round:

Girls’ Section:

1. N Madhumita [Andhra; 8.5 points], 2. Sagar Tejaswini R [Mah; 8 points], 3. PN Sneha (Pon), 4. Sawantriya (Goa) [both 7.5 points each], 5. Manoj Anjali (Kerala), 6. Bansi Pratima (Andhra), 7. MA Lathecka Sai (TN), 8. Sankalp Shreya (Bihar) [all 7 points each], 9. Patnaik Adyasha (Orissa), 10. M Tulsi (Kar), 11. Aggrawal Vanshika (Del), 12. K Rakshana (TN) [6.5 points each).

Boys’ Section:-

1. Y Grahesh [Andhra; 8.5 points, Fide 48.5], 2. Srivastava Adarsh [UP; 8.5 points, Fide 45.5], 3. M Sabhareesh (TN), 4. Mitrabha Guha (WB) [both 8 points each]; 5. Pradhan Dipu (Asm), 6. Mohanty Sourav (Orissa) [both 7.5 points each], 7. Jain Jeet (Guj), 8. Patkar Tejas Nilesh (Mah), 9. Puranik Abhimanyu (Mah), 10. Chatterjee Haraprasad (Orissa), 11. Khasbardar Soham (Mah), 12. Nadar Anand (Mah), 13. S Sukirthi (TN), Srivastava Yashwant (Delhi) [all 7 points each].

Inter unit sports meet

As a concluding part of the year long Indian Air Force Platinum Jubilee celebrations, a four-day Inter Unit Sports Meet 2007-08 was organised at Air Force Station Memaura recently.

Throughout the week various events like football, volleyball, basketball matches and athletic meets took place. The final day witnessed a Tug of War competition between Team ‘Alfa’ (Air Warriors) and Team ‘Bravo’ (Defence Security Corps- DSC personnel).

The overall meet trophy was bagged by Wing Commander R Verma (captain of team Bravo) from Group Captain T Rajeevan, VM, Station Commander, Air Force Station Memaura who graced the occasion as chief guest.

M'lore: Lourdes School Wins Under-14 National Chess Title

Mangalore,INDIA Nov 6: In the history of Karnataka chess the Lourdes Central School has scripted a new episode by winning the under-14 category championship in the national CBSE chess championship 2007-08 which was held in Chennai from October 29 to November 3.

According to a press release, the team comprising Nihal Manjunath (captain), Adith Jagadish, Yashas Salian, Rammohan Bhandari and Akash Harendranath scored 19.5 points in 6 rounds. The 80 points of the Jawahar School helped the Lourdes Central School clinch the title as against 82.5 points, which was the tie-break score of Lourdes School.

Adith Jagadish who remained unbeaten and Yashas Salian also won the Board prizes in 3rd and 4th Board respectively with their individual scores of 6 and 5 points respectively.

For the Magalorean team this is the maiden major chess title in CBSE chess event. The team won the title despite the participation of strong teams from all over India. All the players of the team are being trained at Derik’s Chess School, in the city.

Ratnamakaran wins chess tourney

Kochi, (PTI): Top seed IM K Ratnakaran of Southern Railways, Chennai, won the All India National FIDE rated chess tournament here with 7.5 points.

Though Ratnakaran lost to Sayeed Anwar Shazuli (ICF) in the ninth round, he emerged victorius on the basis of the progressive FIDE points.

R R Laxman (Tamil Nadu), M B Murlidharan (Kerala) and Syed Anwar Shazuli (all 7.5 points) came second, third and fourth respectively.

IM Balasubramanian Ramanatha (ICF) won the fifth spot with seven points.

TamilNadu State-level chess

CHENNAI: The Maharishi Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School will conduct a State-level chess tournament at its premises in Chetpet on November 10 and 11 for boys’ and girls’ in the under-8, 10, 12, 14 and 18 categories.

Entries close on November 6 with S. Namasivayam, Principal, Maharishi Vidya Mandir.

For details, contact Sanjai Kumar, ph: 98413 42129 or Ananthan , ph: 98407 03544.