Sethuraman, Kruttika Start Top Seed

By Arvind Aaron

The Asian Junior Chess Championship sponsored by Sri Sai Ram Engineering College was inaugurated by Leo Muthu, Chairman of the Sai Ram Educational Group at Hotel Vijay Park on Dec 5.

In the opening ceremony, Muthu played 1.d4 and inaugurated the event and defending champion P. Karthikeyan of Chennai also played a move Nf6. The media should give non-cricket sports some importance said the chief guest Leo Muthu.

D.V. Sundar, Honorary Secretary of the AICF welcomed the gathering and K. Muralimohan offered the vote of thenks. TNSCA Vice Presidents J.C. D Prabhakaran and V. Kameswaran took part in the function along with R.V. Gokhale of Mumbai and Vel Murugan of the Velammal Educational Group.

A total of 68 boys and 38 girls were expected to play. The event which runs from December 5-15 is organised jointly by Sports Promotion Foundation and the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association. Prof Anantharam of Sivakasi is the Chief Arbiter.

The tenth seed player from Bangladesh, Minhazuddin Ahmed who is expecting to improve and enter the 2400 rating after the Dresden Olympiad results go in said he is in Chennai for the first time and has no fear to stay here. Many overseas players stayed away from visiting India after the recent terrorist attacks at Mumbai.

Both the defending champions, P. Karthikeyan of Chennai and Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata are competing. Karthikeyan is playing for the second GM norm the event offers and Mary Ann is playing for seeding to the World Junior.

International Master S.P. Sethuraman of Chennai and Kruttika Nadig of Pune are the top seeds in the boys and girls event. The event can be followed on the internet on www.indianchessfed.org and www.tamilchess.com