National Cities Chess meet in Chennai

Chennai, Feb 9 (UNI) About 35 teams would vie for top honours in the Shipping Corporation of India tenth National Cities Team Chess Championship to be held here from February 11 to 15.

The tournament, to be played over the eight round swiss system under the Chess Olympiad format, would be organised by the T Nagar Chess Academy on behalf the of All India Chess Federation and the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association.

The total prize money would be Rs 60,000 with Rs 20,000, Rs 15,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 6,000 and Rs 4,000 for the first five teams and Rs 1000 each for five Board prizes.

The tournament, revived after a gap of two years, assumes significance as the top two teams would represent India in the Asian Cities Chess Team Championship to be held at Teheran in Iran from March one to nine, AICF Secretary D V Sundar told reporters today.

Defending champions Chennai would field 15 teams with Chennai A and B being the top two seeds.

Mumbai, Mangalore, Bangalore, Jammu, Punjab, Kochi, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur, Kadapa, Kolkatta and Delhi are the other cities in the fray.

A galaxy of International players like GM elect G B Prakash, International Masters N Sudhakar Babu, R R Laxman, R Balasubramaniam and V Hariharan, Sai Meera Ravi, K Rathnakaran, K V Shantharam, Mari Arul and several other National players would be seen in action.

International Arbiter V Ravichandran would be the Chief Arbiter.

Tamil Nadu Minister for Environment and Sports T P M Mohideen Khan would inaugurate the Championship and former MLA and actor, also a chess enthusiast, D Napolean, would be the guest of honour.

UNI