01st Saranya FIDE Rating

Gowtham of Guntur has never won FIDE Rating Tournaments and he came to Chennai to play in the 1st Saranya FIDE Rated Open and give out his best. He never thought of the first place. However, in the final round, when he took on 14-year old M.Shyam Sundar, he needed to win for the title as both played with the same points and his little opponent had more tie-breaks score in case the game was drawn. Playing under a strict `must win' attitude he broke down the passive play of Shyam Sundar to win his sixth game in a row and the title with 8.5/10.

Gowtham is 37 and is a chess trainer by profession. He himself had been trained by former National `A' player Ch. Satyanarayana in Guntur. "It was my first triumph," opined the winner who rarely smiled. He had at best played a few National B Championships. Chennai's own coach, Vinoth Kumar, 26, defeated the experienced V.Hariharan of Indian Bank in the final round to secure second place with eight points. M.Shyam Sundar who played some nice games for his age took third place with 7.5.

The event was organised by N.N.Sivagnanam, Director, Saranya Chess Centre who recovered from serious sickness in 2004. The event was named after his daughter. Little Saranya inaugurated and also gave away the prizes. "Should be a record for any five year old," said Sivagnanam. The arbiters team headed by Susil Kumar did a good job and once again the menace was mobile phones. Among those who lost a valuable point was P.Jayakumar (P&T). C.Praveen Kumar was the top seed but he only managed to tie for the sixth place.

Marriage halls are proving useful for chess. Marriages are not held in the July-August month and chess organisers are making use of them. This is a brand new event for Chennai's chess calendar and is likely to form the calendar each year. The prize money was Rs.50,000. About 44 players had ratings and 61 were unrated. The event helps India to widen the rating base among our players. The unrated players pay the entry fee to try and get ratings and the rated players come for the prize money.

Final standings: 1 T.Gowtham 8.5, 2 Vinoth Kumar 8, 3-5 Shyam Sundar, Ram S Krishnan, Pradeep Kumar 7.5 each, 6-14 V.Hariharan, C.Praveen Kumar, P.Phoobalan, Sagar Shah, K.V.Shantharam, Debashis Das, Vijaya Sharathy, Rahul Ved, N.Vigneswaran 7 each, 15-18 George Daniel, J.Mohana Priya, P.Jayakumar, M.Damodaran 6.5 each...105-players.