National Juniors Return To Chennai

By Arvind Aaron

The National Junior championship returned to Chennai for the third time when Stree Seva Mandir sponsored the 39th edition of the National Junior and the 24th edition of the National Junior Girls championship. The word 'return' is used since the first two National Junior championships were organised at Chennai in 1970 and 1972.

Players call this 2009 National Junior as the strongest ever. Even some arbiters feel the same. When more than seven of the players have more than 2400 rating, it is indeed strong. One reason for the strong event is also that players have to go through this event as AICF has made this mandatory to all players who intend to go even as donor into the Asian and World Junior events. This rule is bound to help lower rated players as they will know how to handle higher rated opponents.

The top seeds are world beaters. The top seed Baskaran Adhiban of Chennai is a World Under-16 champion besides being two-time National 'B' or National Challenger champion. Padmini Rout of Orissa is the World Under-14 girls champion and has plenty of talent to achieve more.

Still, not many top seeds have actually won the National Junior. When Vaidyanathan Ravikumar of Chennai won the National Junior at Bangalore in February 1978 he was not the top seed. P.M. Thipsay of Mumbai was the top seed then. Ravikumar also went on to win the Asian Junior at Tehran the same year and become India's second International Master after a gap of 17 years. Since then, Indians have won the Asian Junior more than other Asian nations.

Indian Junior chess has provided plenty for Indian and Asian chess. Five Indians have won the world junior so far. The path breaker is of course Viswanathan Anand of Madras who won the National Junior at Sangli in 1986 and followed it up by winning the World Junior at Bagiuo City in the Philippines in 1987.

The next champion came 15 years later when Koneru Humpy of Vijayawada won the World Junior Girls Championship at Athens 2002. Humpy was born in the same year when Anand won the World Junior. Her father Koneru Ashok was a  chess player and Andhra champion.

By this time, Indian chess grew by atleast ten times that of our economy! More players started coming close to winning the World Junior. In 2004, India hosted the event at Kochi and Pentala Harikrishna of Guntur (later moved to Hyderabad) won this event comfortably.

In 2008, India did something new which none of the other nations including the erstwhile Soviet Union did not achieve. We won both the World Junior and the World Junior girls championship.

Abhijeet Gupta of Bhilwara in Rajasthan (India's largest state now) won the World Junior at Turkey. Gupta had moved to Delhi. Dronavalli Harika of Guntur won the Girls section very comfortably.

Winning the world junior gets invitations to category 12-15 events in Europe and across the world. There is a momentum at the junior level and soon more Indians will also become world junior champions.

"Get A Degree" Says N.M.

The 2009 National Junior was inaugurated by AICF Patron Dr N. Mahalingam. He served as President of the AICF from 1985-89. He adviced our junior players to study well take a minimum college degree in any subject and pursue chess. Educationalist Surya Narayana Rao, Vice President of Stree Seva Mandir asked the players to think ahead and push limits. He is a chess player and sponsor of this event. D.V. Sundar, who is the organiser of this National Junior through Sports Promotion Foundation said the period when Mahalingam and Aaron were President and Secretary of the AICF from 1985-89 were growth years. That was when chess was recognised as sport by the Government of India and players could now be recruited in Railways and Public Sector units. Manuel Aaron, Government Observer for chess recalled many of the schemes which Mahalingam had to help chess and chess players. J.C.D. Prabhakaran, Vice President of the TNSCA welcomed the gathering.

After four rounds, top seed Baskaran Adhiban and the new National 'A' qualifier Ramnath Bhuvanesh are leading the boys section with full four points. Among girls, Bhakti Kulkarni of Goa and R. Preethi of Madurai are on top with four full points.

More News