Dreev top seed in Parsvnath International, 6 Indian GMs in fray

New Delhi, Jan 10 (UNI) Russian Grandmaster Alexey Dreev has been given the top billing, while national champions Surya Shekhar Ganguly will spearhead the Indian challenge in the fifth Parsvnath International Chess tournament, which gets underway here on Monday.

The Rs 8.75 lakh battle of the wits would feature 15 Grandmasters, 30 International Masters and four Women Grandmasters with a winner's purse of Rs two lakhs, apart from IM and GM norms, up for grabs.

Ganguly will lead an Indian GM gang of six, also including Dibyendu Barua, Neelotpal Das, Deepan Chakravarthy, Abhijit Kunte and Pravin Thipsay.

Apart from Dreev, who is seeded top with 2658 Elo points, GMs from abroad include Yuri Drozdovski (Ukrain), former joint winner Saidali Iuldachev and his Uzbek compatriot Safin Shukhrat, Bangladeshi duo of Niaz Murshed and Ziaur Rehman, Ahmed Adly of Egypt, Stefan Djuric of Serbia and Taleb Moussa of UAE.

Meanwhile, the age group world champion trio of Girish Kaushik, N Srinath and Sahaj Grover will have their fair share of the limelight in the tournament and the budding talents would test their higher ranked opponents in the tournament.

''With 50-odd title players in the fray, it would be an excellent opportunity for the new talents to pocket IM and GM norms,'' secretary of the Delhi Chess Association Bharat Singh Chauhan said.

Eyes will also be on International Master Diwakar Prasad Singh, who is facing a probe by the All India Chess Federation after some of his fellow players accused him of cheating. Singh, however, maintained that he is innocent and said he would dispel all doubt with his performance in this tournament.

UNI