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Ms.Soumya Swaminathan |
Meet Soumya Swaminathan Our National Junior Girls Champion
By Arvind Aaron
Soumya Swaminathan is a two-time national junior girls champion having won
it at Sivakasi in November 2005 and at Delhi in 2006. She is one of the
players in the current National Women "A" chess Championship being
sponsored by Win TV and BSNL at Hotel Sangeetha Residency in Mylapore,
Chennai.
In a chat after her sixth round, Soumya who is a first year B.Com student
from BMCC College Pune said she hopes to become a Woman International
Master soon and cross 2200 rating mark.
Soumya speaks a number of languages, Tamil, English, Marathi and Hindi.
Her other interests are music and films. She prepares from her laptop and
travels to Khar, Mumbai to train under GM Pravin Thipsay. Her favourite
player is Bobby Fischer.
She has been travelling a lot and and is under scholarship from Indian
Oil. She liked Oropesa del Mar, Spain very much and that was her first
trip outside India in 1999. She lives with her father after losing her
mother in an accident. Asked if losing her mother affected her chess,
Soumya said, yes very much but overall, not just in chess.
Soumya gets local support from her uncle Ramnarayanan (mothers brother)
who is the branch manager of Central Bank of India, Mylapore Branch which
is four blocks away from Hotel Sangeetha Residency, the venue.
Asked for a suggestion to improve this new format under which the National
Women A is played, Soumya said,"I love this Swiss format. The 18-game
format earlier was boring and tiring." I do not like the odd entry here
and getting a "bye" is a humiliation. "I hope I dont get it," said Soumya
with her hand on her heart.
About expectations, Soumya said she did not expect to finish in the top
five at Sivakasi but actually ended up winning the National Junior Girls
last year. In Delhi I expected to win and I won, she added. My only
ambition is to play well.
she and her room-mate Amruta Mokal wanted to browse the net and soon we
heard them say "India jinkla" (marathi for win) and one knew they were
following the Doha Asian games. "Humpy is incredible." I hope we get the
team gold also.
About Chennai and the organisation here she likes it and has played many
age group events in the city. Her career best is winning the National
Junior.
Expect to read more about this smiling Pune teenager.
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Published on : 11.12.2006
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