Pairing of the National SubJunior Girls

Round 6 on 2007/10/06 at 9.00 a.m
Bo. Name IRtg Club Pts Res. Pts Name IRtg Club
1 Devangi Patankar 2021 MAHA 4½ 4½ WFM Pon N Krithika 2140 TN
2 Gagare Shalmali 1988 MAHA 4½ 4½ Roy Pallabi 2032 WB
3 Sriharika Y G 1896 AP 4 4 Nlv Anusha 2010 AP
4 Mohana Priya J 1988 TN 4 4 Niji A 1925 KERALA
5 WFM Kotepalli Sai Nirupama 1977 AP 4 4 Shristi J Shetty 1916 KAR
6 Khushboo M 1754 TN 4 3½ Savetha C H 1968 TN
7 Sahari J 1836 AP 3½ 3½ Sathya Priya S V 1888 TN
8 Shaati Majumder 1877 WB 3½ 3½ Sujitha P 1725 TN
9 Rathore Sonakshi 1956 RAJ 3 3½ Vaishnavi J 1800 TN
10 Bharathi R 2017 TN 3 3 Anjana Krishna S 1802 KERALA
11 Pavitra Jagtap 1842 KAR 3 3 Sree Lakshmi V 1951 AP
12 Gupta Nishtha 1830 RAJ 3 3 Aatirah C P 1912 KERALA
13 Mohana Sengupta 1904 WB 3 3 Nivedhitha J G 1750 TN
14 Sneha Karekar 1830 KAR 3 3 Jagadambal M 1896 TN
15 Visalatchi R 1892 TN 3 3 Pratyusha Bodda 1736 AP
16 Taraswiniee B 1753 PONDY 3 3 Nandhini Saripalli 1876 GOA
17 Janani J 1862 TN 3 3 Nandhidhaa P V 1729 TN
18 Diotima Dutta Gupta 1670 WB 3 3 Supriya Joshi 1848 MAHA
19 A Akshaya 1847 TN 3 3 Soumya Shrivastava 0 MAHA
20 Nisha N Patkar 1914 KAR 2½ 2½ Ankita Singh 0 CHATTISGARH
21 Bhuvaneshwari.r 0 TN 2½ 2½ Agnihotri Ghosh 1888 WB
22 Diksha Chavan 0 GOA 2½ 2½ Krushna Mishra 1703 ORISSA
23 Karthikeyini.R 0 TN 2½ 2½ Suneha Acharyya 1699 WB
24 Sampada Barve 0 GOA 2½ 2½ Vini Mary Thomas 1634 AP
25 Sushmitha.G 0 TN 2½ 2½ Deshpande Aafrin 0 MAHA
26 Sukanya Dutta 1990 WB 2 2 Arthi.B 0 TN
27 Saranya J 1922 TN 2 2 Aishwarya.R 0 TN
28 Gupta Astha 1800 RAJ 2 2 Ankita Gandhi 0 CHATTISGARH
29 Akhade Vaishnavi 0 MAHA 2 2 Anushya S 1786 TN
30 Radhika.G 0 TN 2 2 Janu V 1744 TN
31 Mahalakshmi M 1710 TN 2 2 Deepam 0 BIHAR
32 Ashwini U 1702 TN 2 2 Janis Maria Fredrick 0 PONDY
33 Sowmia A 1679 TN 2 2 Isha Bhave 0 MAHA
34 Pallavi 0 BIHAR 2 2 Sowjhanya S 1671 TN
35 Priya V S S 1492 AP 2 2 Navya Vyshnavi.M 0 AP
36 Sukanya Chari 0 GOA 1½ 1½ Abirami.R 0 TN
37 Alka Raj 0 KERALA 1½ 1½ Priyanga.G 0 PONDY
38 Kanchana Dhevi .A 0 PONDY 1½ 1½ Supriya Shanbhaga 0 GOA
39 Subhashree Indira Priyadarshini 0 ORISSA 1½ 1½ Kanika Saxena 0 DELHI
40 Nibriti Simran 0 BIHAR 1½ 1½ Yamini.V 0 PONDY
41 Ira Solanki 0 GUJRAT 1 1 Preethy.P 0 PONDY
42 Nivedha.L 0 TN 1 1 Jeyassri.B 0 TN
43 Madhurima Shekhar 0 DELHI 1 1 Ramalakshmi 0 TN
44 Shristi Gautham 0 BIHAR 1 ½ Jigna Joshi 0 GUJRAT
Simantini Shasani 0 ORISSA ½ Bye 0

Pairings of the National Subjunior Boys

Round 6 on 2007/10/06 at 9.00 a.m
Bo. Name IRtg Club Pts Res. Pts Name IRtg Club
1 Adhiban B 2422 TN 4½ 4½ FM Nitin S 2321 TN
2 FM Prasanna Rao 2228 MAHA 4½ 4 Udeshi Aditya 2355 MAHA
3 Bitan Banerjee 2149 WB 4 4 Sethuraman S P 2427 TN
4 Lalith Babu M R 2350 AP 4 4 Stany G A 2097 KAR
5 FM Priyadharshan K 2298 TN 4 4 Antonio Viani D'cunha 1988 KAR
6 Fenil Shah 2124 GUJRAT 4 4 Debashis Das 2286 ORISSA
7 Ramnath Bhuvanesh R 2115 TN 4 4 IM Shyam Sundar M 2241 TN
8 Abhratanu Dutta 2023 WB 4 4 Swayams Mishra 2187 ORISSA
9 FM Narayanan Srinath 2201 TN 3½ 4 FM Girish A Koushik 2086 KAR
10 Hemant Sharma 2193 DEL 3½ 3½ Navalgund Niranjan 2012 KAR
11 Lokesh P 2012 TN 3½ 3½ Kulkarni Rakesh 2119 MAHA
12 Das Sayantan 1982 WB 3½ 3½ K Vijaya Kanth 2110 AP
13 Yashas D 1966 KAR 3½ 3½ Chatterjee Sandipan 2075 WB
14 Harihara Sudan M 1948 TN 3½ 3½ Sri Harsha Lingala 2052 AP
15 Srikanth Ajay 2028 TN 3½ 3½ Avinash Singh 1945 CHHATTIS
16 Ritwan Sauntra 1929 JK 3½ 3½ Santhosh Kumar G 2024 TN
17 Shantanil Simlai 1877 WB 3½ 3½ G Akash 2013 TN
18 Ankit R Rajpara 2134 GUJRAT 3 3½ Shashaank D S 1935 TN
19 Mohineesh C H 1925 AP 3 3 Diptanu Das 2137 WB
20 Atishay Ajmera 1903 RAJ 3 3 Surendran N 2126 TN
21 Tejas Chandra S 2105 AP 3 3 Jitendria Vel S 1919 TN
22 Anurag Mhamal 2092 GOA 3 3 Sai Manivannan N R 1926 TN
23 Gusain Himal 2085 CHANDIGARH 3 3 Srinath Rao S V 1899 CHHATTIS
24 Abhinav Nr 1856 TN 3 3 Satyajit Kundu 2085 WB
25 Gagare Shardul 2080 MAHA 3 3 Shaik Abdul Azeez 1915 AP
26 Sumit Kumar Jha 1840 TN 3 3 Kumar Gaurav 2080 BIHAR
27 Ramalingam Karthik 1836 TN 3 3 Praveen Kumar 2064 BIHAR
28 Imtiaz Islam Bora 2043 ASSAM 3 3 Raju S 1872 TN
29 Nayak Biswajit 2024 ORISSA 3 3 Dubey Ankesh 1894 MP
30 Kaushlendra Kumar 1993 BIHAR 3 3 Rajkumar N 1835 TN
31 Satra Pravesh 1703 MAHA 3 3 Tejas Ravichandran 1980 TN
32 Vishnu Sharon R 1943 TN 3 3 Eshwanth Dev Kumar J 1801 TN
33 Bindumadhavan Krishnaprasad 1413 MAHA 3 3 Mullick Saikat 1934 WB
34 Bharathyraja.K 0 PONDY 3 2½ Abhilash Reddy M L 2069 AP
35 Muthu Alagappan M 1968 TN 2½ 2½ Sai Prahlad K 1834 TN
36 Mukesh M 1739 TN 2½ 2½ Kathirvel M 1906 PONDY
37 Darshan V P S 1897 KAR 2½ 2½ Vishnu Prasad A S 1722 KERALA
38 Vaibhav Khanna 1893 DELHI 2½ 2½ Lokknath S 1709 TN
39 Abhijith .R 0 KERALA 2½ 2½ Dinesh Kumaar R 1883 TN
40 Jaswant G 1872 TN 2½ 2½ Vinod Kumar B 1706 PONDY
41 Akshay Khator 0 CHHATTIS 2½ 2½ Keegan Furtado 1870 GOA
42 Kawaljeet Singh Maras 0 MAHA 2½ 2½ Johnson Sahoo 1869 ORISSA
43 V Vijai 1858 PONDY 2½ 2½ Sivanesan.S 0 PONDY
44 Karma Pandya 1852 GUJRAT 2½ 2½ Subham 0 BIHAR
45 Sanjay Mishra 0 ORISSA 2½ 2 Ganesh.P 1931 TN
46 Darpan Inani 0 GUJRAT 2 2 Santhosbaala R S 1919 TN
47 Hardik Joshi 0 GUJRAT 2 2 Agasti Tari 1875 GOA
48 Ganesh R 1829 TN 2 2 Kaushik Bhave 0 MAHA
49 Vasantha Ruba Varman 1814 TN 2 2 Mohammad Ashraf 0 ORISSA
50 Rajat Rajkhowa 0 ASSAM 2 2 Ram Gupta 1809 DELHI
51 Mohandeep Gogoi 0 ASSAM 2 2 Mugil Jayavel 1802 TN
52 Prakash Yadav 0 MP 2 2 Pranav Zantye 1795 GOA
53 Satbir 0 CHANDIGARH 2 2 Sanjeev V 1782 TN
54 S.Badrinath 0 PONDY 2 2 Jaitheerth K 1676 KERALA
55 Abhishek Nayal 0 JK 2 2 Sanjeev.S.S 0 TN
56 Amalan.S.A 0 TN 2 2 Susanta Kumar Bhoi 0 ORISSA
57 Patil Pratik 1947 MAHA 1½ 1½ Adithya Prasanna 0 PONDY
58 Indrajit Handique 0 ASSAM 1½ 1½ Madhan N 1851 TN
59 Kamal Shankar K.S 0 TN 1½ 1½ Subhajyoti Saha 1639 WB
60 Ravindra Teja.M 0 AP 1½ 1½ Saikat Dutta 1555 JHARKHAND
61 Rohan Mourya 0 MP 1½ 1½ Adithyan.P.S 0 KERALA
62 Sai Kiran.S 0 TN 1½ 1½ Anchit Vyas 0 MP
63 Aniruddhan.T.A 0 TN 1½ 1½ Sirish 0 CHANDIGARH
64 Hariharan R 1813 PONDY 1 1½ Suraj.L 0 MANIPUR
65 Manisana .H 0 MANIPUR 1 1 Alex Fernadus 0 TN
66 Pintu Kumar Keshri 0 JHARKHAND 1 1 Ankit Singh 0 CHHATTIS
67 Aseem Bihari Sharan 0 JHARKHAND 1 1 Pradip.M 0 MANIPUR
68 Chandrakant 0 JHARKHAND 1 1 Sashi Kumar 0 BIHAR
69 Gitin Oberoi 0 CHANDIGARH 1 1 Sunil Dev.S 0 PONDY
70 Harivallabha R 0 TN 1 1 Yaish.M 0 MANIPUR
71 Ramanathan RM 0 TN 1 ½ Vishwanath Jeyaraman 0 TN
72 Vimal Adhithya Chozhan 0 TN ½ 0 Bala.Mukilan 0 TN
73 Clinton Kaniamuthan 0 TN 0 0 Narayanan.M.R 0 TN

7 Players Share Lead in National Subjuniors

Continuation from Cyberchess.co.in
33rd NATIONAL SUB JUNIOR OPEN CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2007

Round 4 on 2007/10/05 at 9.00 a.m
Bo. Name IRtg Club Pts Res. Pts Name IRtg Club
1 Anurag Mhamal 2092 GOA 3 3 FM Nitin S 2321 TN
2 FM Priyadharshan K 2298 TN 3 3 Fenil Shah 2124 GUJRAT
3 FM Prasanna Rao 2228 MAHA 3 3 Antonio Viani D'cunha 1988 KAR
4 Chatterjee Sandipan 2075 WB 3 2½ Debashis Das 2286 ORISSA
5 Gusain Himal 2085 CHANDIGARH 2½ 2½ Adhiban B 2422 TN
6 Gagare Shardul 2080 MAHA 2½ 2½ IM Shyam Sundar M 2241 TN
7 Srikanth Ajay 2028 TN 2½ 2½ FM Narayanan Srinath 2201 TN
8 Hemant Sharma 2193 DEL 2½ 2½ Kumar Gaurav 2080 BIHAR
9 Bitan Banerjee 2149 WB 2½ 2½ Sri Harsha Lingala 2052 AP
10 Nayak Biswajit 2024 ORISSA 2½ 2½ Surendran N 2126 TN
11 Abhratanu Dutta 2023 WB 2½ 2½ Kulkarni Rakesh 2119 MAHA
12 Atishay Ajmera 1903 RAJ 2½ 2½ K Vijaya Kanth 2110 AP
13 Lokesh P 2012 TN 2½ 2½ FM Girish A Koushik 2086 KAR
14 Sethuraman S P 2427 TN 2 2½ Santhosh Kumar G 2024 TN
15 Vishnu Sharon R 1943 TN 2 2 Udeshi Aditya 2355 MAHA
16 Lalith Babu M R 2350 AP 2 2 Ganesh.P 1931 TN
17 Mullick Saikat 1934 WB 2 2 Swayams Mishra 2187 ORISSA
18 Ritwan Sauntra 1929 JK 2 2 Diptanu Das 2137 WB
19 Ankit R Rajpara 2134 GUJRAT 2 2 Sai Manivannan N R 1926 TN
20 Ramnath Bhuvanesh R 2115 TN 2 2 Santhosbaala R S 1919 TN
21 Tejas Chandra S 2105 AP 2 2 Shaik Abdul Azeez 1915 AP
22 Mohineesh C H 1925 AP 2 2 Stany G A 2097 KAR
23 Kathirvel M 1906 PONDY 2 2 Satyajit Kundu 2085 WB
24 Darshan V P S 1897 KAR 2 2 Abhilash Reddy M L 2069 AP
25 Praveen Kumar 2064 BIHAR 2 2 Srinath Rao S V 1899 CHHATTIS
26 Imtiaz Islam Bora 2043 ASSAM 2 2 Dubey Ankesh 1894 MP
27 Jaswant G 1872 TN 2 2 G Akash 2013 TN
28 Keegan Furtado 1870 GOA 2 2 Navalgund Niranjan 2012 KAR
29 Das Sayantan 1982 WB 2 2 Agasti Tari 1875 GOA
30 Pranav Zantye 1795 GOA 2 2 Tejas Ravichandran 1980 TN
31 Sanjay Mishra 0 ORISSA 2 2 Yashas D 1966 KAR
32 Harihara Sudan M 1948 TN 2 2 Johnson Sahoo 1869 ORISSA
33 Kaushlendra Kumar 1993 BIHAR 1½ 1½ Vishnu Prasad A S 1722 KERALA
34 Muthu Alagappan M 1968 TN 1½ 1½ Vinod Kumar B 1706 PONDY
35 Mukesh M 1739 TN 1½ 1½ Avinash Singh 1945 CHHATTIS
36 Subhajyoti Saha 1639 WB 1½ 1½ Shashaank D S 1935 TN
37 Aniruddhan.T.A 0 TN 1½ 1½ Jitendria Vel S 1919 TN
38 Vaibhav Khanna 1893 DELHI 1½ 1½ Abhijith .R 0 KERALA
39 Akshay Khator 0 CHHATTIS 1½ 1½ Dinesh Kumaar R 1883 TN
40 Shantanil Simlai 1877 WB 1½ 1½ Adithyan.P.S 0 KERALA
41 Bharathyraja.K 0 PONDY 1½ 1½ Raju S 1872 TN
42 V Vijai 1858 PONDY 1½ 1½ Subham 0 BIHAR
43 Rohan Mourya 0 MP 1½ 1½ Eshwanth Dev Kumar J 1801 TN
44 Sivanesan.S 0 PONDY 1½ 1 Patil Pratik 1947 MAHA
45 Abhinav Nr 1856 TN 1 1 Aseem Bihari Sharan 0 JHARKHAND
46 Karma Pandya 1852 GUJRAT 1 1 Athithiya Prasanna.N 0 PONDY
47 Sumit Kumar Jha 1840 TN 1 1 Kamal Shankar K.S 0 TN
48 Ramalingam Karthik 1836 TN 1 1 Gitin Oberoi 0 CHANDIGARH
49 Rajkumar N 1835 TN 1 1 Kaushik Bhave 0 MAHA
50 Kawaljeet Singh Maras 0 MAHA 1 1 Sai Prahlad K 1834 TN
51 Ganesh R 1829 TN 1 1 Manisana .H 0 MANIPUR
52 Mohandeep Gogoi 0 ASSAM 1 1 Vasantha Ruba Varman 1814 TN
53 Hariharan R 1813 PONDY 1 1 Mohd.Ashraf 0 ORISSA
54 Prakash Yadav 0 MP 1 1 Ram Gupta 1809 DELHI
55 Mugil Jayavel 1802 TN 1 1 Rajat Rajkhowa 0 ASSAM
56 Ramanathan RM 0 TN 1 1 Sanjeev V 1782 TN
57 Satra Pravesh 1703 MAHA 1 1 S.Badrinath 0 PONDY
58 Sashi Kumar 0 BIHAR 1 1 Jaitheerth K 1676 KERALA
59 Bindumadhavan Krishnaprasad 1413 MAHA 1 1 Sanjeev.S.S 0 TN
60 Abhishek Nayal 0 JK 1 1 Suraj.L 0 MANIPUR
61 Amalan.S.A 0 TN 1 1 Satbir 0 CHANDIGARH
62 Susanta Kumar Bhoi 0 ORISSA 1 1 Ankit Singh 0 CHHATTIS
63 Sai Kiran.S 0 TN ½ ½ Madhan N 1851 TN
64 Lokknath S 1709 TN ½ ½ Viswanath Jayaraman 0 TN
65 Vimal Adhithya Chozhan 0 TN ½ ½ Saikat Dutta 1555 JHARKHAND
66 Sunil Dev.S 0 PONDY ½ ½ Anchit Vyas 0 MP
67 Alex Fernadus 0 TN 0 ½ Ravindra Teja.M 0 AP
68 Indrajit Handique 0 ASSAM 0 0 Bala.Mukilan 0 TN
69 Narayanan.M.R 0 TN 0 0 Chandrakanth 0 JHARKHAND
70 Clinton Kaniamuthan 0 TN 0 0 Pradip.M 0 MANIPUR
71 Pintu Kumar Keshri 0 JHARKHAND 0 0 Darpan Inani 0 GUJRAT
72 Yaish.M 0 MANIPUR 0 0 Hardik Joshi 0 GUJRAT
73 Harivallabha R 0 TN 0 0 Sirish 0 CHANDIGARH

Saturday Show: Swathi Ghate

Chess. FM India Weekly Saturday show - Interview with WGM Swathi Ghate

Chess.FM India's Saturday Show presents an interview with WGM Swathi Ghate of Pune. The weekly Saturday show also features "India this Week", and Up coming tournaments across India. India this week brings an update on Viswanathan Anand at the World Chess championship in progress at Mexico city, the Asian Individual Championship at Cebu City, and the various events held recently across India.


You can listen to Chess.FM India directly heard through the web browsers at http://www.chessclub.com/chessfm/India.asx or make a visit to www.chess.fm for much more shows and game videos too. The show will also be also be replayed right through the week at the above links.

Join the ICC Chess.FM World Championship team for a ringside seat of all the action from Mexico City! www.chessclub.com is providing some of the best coverage ever produced for a big event such as this - and not just restricted to members-only.

Free to non-members on ICC will be Mig's podcast on his spin of the days play along with a daily video diary from Macauley in Mexico. Do not miss the free 15-min Game of the Day video from one of ICC commentary team. As a special feature, we have round by round instructive analysis of GM Viswanathan Anand's games by GM R B Ramesh.
For members, there will be daily live commentary and board analyses with US Chess Journalist of the Year, Mig Greengard, and he'll be joined each day on the show by one of our crack GM commentary team of Joel Benjamin, Larry Christiansen, Jon Speelman, John Fedorowicz, Gregory Kaidanov and Nick De Firmian. Macauley Peterson will also have interviews and the latest news direct from the Mexico City press center. And for each round during the show, the famed New In Chess trivia contest will see a lucky winner receive a one-year subscription to the best chess magazine in the world.

ChessFM India, the exclusive India channel of Internet Chess Club's www.chess.fm was inaugurated during the Anand Charity Simul for Vidyasagar charity organisation. The previous Saturday show guests include various chess personalties, former World Junior champion GM Harikrishna, World's youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi, Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda, Indian Women champion WGM Tania Sachdev, GM Dibyendu Barua, WGM Dronavalli Harika, IM Prathamesh, WGM S Vijayalakshmi, IM GN Gopal, WIM Kiran Manisha Mohanty, IM D V Prasad, R V Gokhale.

ChessFM India is a free service and apart from the Saturday weekly show, has broadcasts Grandmaster commentary and analysis of popular Chess tournaments such M Tel Super category tournament, Bulgaria and the Sparkassen Chess Festival, Dortmund and the recently concluded Mainz Rapid won by GM Viswanathan Anand.


For futher information on ChessFM India & ICC:

K Visweswaran, India Representative,

The Internet Chess Club, Inc. www.chessclub.com

email: IccIndia@chessclub.com Ph: +91-9444934036 .

National Subjunior- Boys & Girls. Top 10 board pairings

Round 3 on 2007/10/04 at 9.00 a.m
Bo. Name IRtg Club Pts Res. Pts Name IRtg Club
1 Udeshi Aditya 2355 MAHA 2 2 Chatterjee Sandipan 2075 WB
2 FM Nitin S 2321 TN 2 2 Imtiaz Islam Bora 2043 ASSAM
3 Satyajit Kundu 2085 WB 2 2 FM Priyadharshan K 2298 TN
4 Debashis Das 2286 ORISSA 2 2 Srikanth Ajay 2028 TN
5 IM Shyam Sundar M 2241 TN 2 2 Nayak Biswajit 2024 ORISSA
6 Abhilash Reddy M L 2069 AP 2 2 FM Prasanna Rao 2228 MAHA
7 FM Narayanan Srinath 2201 TN 2 2 Abhratanu Dutta 2023 WB
8 Sri Harsha Lingala 2052 AP 2 2 Hemant Sharma 2193 DEL
9 Santhosh Kumar G 2024 TN 2 2 Bitan Banerjee 2149 WB
10 Surendran N 2126 TN 2 2 Lokesh P 2012 TN

Girls :
1 Shristi J Shetty 1916 KAR 2 2 WFM Pon N Krithika 2140 TN
2 Kanuri Tejaswi 2039 AP 2 2 Mohana Sengupta 1904 WB
3 Jagadambal M 1896 TN 2 2 Bharathi R 2017 TN
4 Sriharika Y G 1896 AP 2 2 Sukanya Dutta 1990 WB
5 Gagare Shalmali 1988 MAHA 2 2 Sahari J 1836 AP
6 Khushboo M 1754 TN 2 2 Mohana Priya J 1988 TN
7 Niji A 1925 KERALA 2 2 Gupta Astha 1800 RAJ
8 Pratyusha Bodda 1736 AP 2 2 Saranya J 1922 TN
9 Roy Pallabi 2032 WB 1½ 2 Nandhidhaa P V 1729 TN
10 Devangi Patankar 2021 MAHA 1½ 1½ Diotima Dutta Gupta 1670 WB

Also visit TNCA website for more information

Next year comes soon

Hours after winning the World Chess Championship, Viswanathan Anand, an Indian grandmaster, sat in his hotel in Mexico City on Saturday and groped for words to explain how he felt.


“You can imagine,” he said by telephone. “I don’t know how on an emotional level it affects me.”
Mr. Anand’s victory was not a surprise — he is ranked No.1 in the world — but it was a milestone. He is the first Asian to be the undisputed champion and only the second player from outside Eastern Europe in the last 60 years. (The other was the American Bobby Fischer, who held the title from 1972 to 1975.)
Mr. Anand will not have a lot of time to rest on his laurels. Under rules of the World Chess Federation, the organizers of the championship, he will have to play a match early next year against the Russian Vladimir Kramnik, the previous champion.
See the complete story

KING OF CHESS -ANAND SHADOWED BY CRICKET?

King of chess
Business Standard / New Delhi October 03, 2007
After 14 days of hard work in Mexico City, chess maestro Viswanathan Anand is entitled to a certain satisfaction. He has been crowned world champion (and received the attached prize money, $390,000, or over Rs 1.5 crore). Across 121 years, only 17 men have won this title — of them, Anand is the only one born and bred outside Europe and the former USSR. In most of the 160-odd nations where this ancient game is played seriously, this achievement would confer automatic superstar status. Sadly, in his country of origin, where chess was invented, Anand’s achievement is overshadowed in the public consciousness by the performance of the national cricket team. In contrast to the cricketers, Anand won without fuss and bother. He entered Mexico as the top seed and duly dominated a field, which consisted of eight of the world’s best players, emerging the undefeated champion. Uniquely, the 37-year-old is the only one to have won the world title under two different formats, and he also holds the world rapid title.

To play tournament chess at any level requires natural talent, strong will, good nerves, physical fitness and the acquisition of a huge body of knowledge about the ways in which the pieces interact across the 64 squares. While the other qualities may be genetic, acquiring the theory requires hard work. The game is taught in schools across much of Western Europe and across all the former Soviet republics by top-class practitioners. It is an amazing act of self-pedagogy for somebody to consistently beat the best products off those assembly lines. It is roughly equivalent to learning a foreign language with enough fluency to write in it and win a Nobel.

Anand’s feats have inspired an entire generation of talented Indian players. The “Indian chess revolution”, if it may be so described, has produced a string of teenagers (Harikrishna, Humpy, Negi, Sachdeva) who compete and win at the highest levels. Sadly, most of this activity has taken place off the public radar and been driven by the efforts of a few dedicated souls.

Chess has many positive externalities. It helps practitioners learn the discipline and self-control required to calculate a mass of possibilities and make quick decisions against a ticking clock. It is a terrific training ground for visuo-spatial pattern recognition. Last but not least, some of the thorniest problems in mathematics and computer science revolve around the game and programming computers to play it well. Thus, it has obvious synergies with information technology and training — the fact that Anand is the NIIT brand ambassador is recognition of this.
READ MORE FROM BUSINESS STANDARD