National School Chess: Title-holders look to steal limelight

NAGPUR: Haryana’s Woman Fide Master (WFM) Tanishka Kotia, four Candidate Masters (CM) and five Woman Candidate Masters (WCM) will be the cynosure of all eyes during the three-day Naivedhyam 6th National School Chess Championship which will get underway at the Naivedhyam Eastoria, Wardhaman Nagar, on Thursday.
The four-day tournament is organized by Nagpur Chess Academy under the cooperation of Nagpur District Chess Association (NDCA).
Tamil Nadu’s CM D Gukesh and Maharashtra’s WCM Mrudul Dehankar will be looking to retain their titles in the U-11 boys and U-13 girls categories respectively while AR Ilamparthi (Tamil Nadu) and Sani Deshpande (Maharashtra) will be eyeing titles in U-9 boys and girls.Both had won the U-7 category titles last year. CM and WCM are the starting titles given to the chess players based on their performance which goes up to FIDE Master (FM), International Master (IM) and Grandmaster.
A total of 12 titles will be at stake in the boys’ and girls’ sections in U-7, U-9, U-11, U-13, U-15 and U—17 age groups. The tournament is the channel to represent India in World School Chess Championship 2017, which will be held at Romania, from April 21 to April 30, 2017.
The 6th National School will be inaugurated at 9 am by the hands of Ravindra Dongre, Treasurer AICF & 3.7 Zonal President, FIDE. IAS Officer Bhagyashree Banait-Dhiware will preside over the function while Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, Sanjay Dhiware and Chetan Kulkarni, Head of Media at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Sanjay Dabadghao, President TDCA, will be the guests of honour. NDCA President Dilip Kamdar, VCA President Manoj Itkelwar, Secretary NDCA, Kalyan Barat, AP Joshi, Working President NCA, will also be present on the occasion. The opening round of the tournament will start at 10 am.
The top three seeded players of the tournament in the respective category are
U-7 boys: Abhinav Raj (Delhi; 1128), Adireddy Arjun (Telangana; 1123), 3. Sadbhav Rautela (Uttarakhand; 1100)
U-7 girls: Kamalini Haradhana Nimban K (Pondicherry; 1015), 2. Tashna Aggarwal (UP), 3. Viral Shah Ahana (Maharashtra)
U-9 boys: 1. AR Ilamparthi (TN; 1543), 2. Sreyas Payyappat (Kerala; 1369), 3. Namish Sharma (Delhi; 1365)
U-9 girls: 1. Tavisha Shah (Maharashtra; 1201), 2. Shruti Naya (TN; 1194), 3. WCM Shefali AN (Karnataka; 1165)
U-11 boys: 1. CM Gukesh (TN; 2236), 2. CM Nikhil Magizhnan (TN; 2142), 3. Sreeshwan Maralakshikari (AP; 1968)
U-11 girls: 1. Vishwa Vasawala (Gujarat; 1448), 2. Darsana MS (TN; 1424), 3. WCM Sanskruti Wankhede (Maharashtra; 1420)
U-13 boys: 1. CM Raja Rithvik R (Telangana; 1999), 2. Naitik Mehta (1928), 3. Adarsh Tripathi (1771)
U-13 girls: 1. WCM Mrudul Dehankar (Maharashtra; 1923), 2. Eesha Sarda (Maharashtra; 1765), 3. Bhagyashree Patil (Maharashtra; 1735)
U-15 boys: 1. Shakthi Vishal J (TN; 2042), 2. Tarun Kanth (TN; 1983), 3. Rishab Shah (Maharashtra; 1977)
U-15 girls: 1. Sanskriti Goyal (UP; 1839), 2. Rutvi Shah (Gujarat; 1720), 3. Rajashree Rajeev (Kerala; 1717)
U-17 boys: 1. Harikrishna A. (TN; 2310), 2. Dhananjay S (Chhattisgarh; 2183), 3. Hemanth Raam (TN; 2168)
U-17 girls: 1. WFM Tanishka Kotia (Haryana; 1594), 2. Kavisha Shah (Gujarat; 1570), 3. Niharika Ch (AP; 1453).