The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Record entries for richest Commonwealth event

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Thursday, Nov 29, 2007
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Record entries for richest Commonwealth event

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Four-time National champion Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly heads a formidable field, numbering 271 players, in the Commonwealth chess championship that opens at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here on December 3.

Besides a record number of participants, the high-point of the event will be the presence of over 70 titled players including 13 GMs, 40 International Masters, five Woman Grandmasters and as many Woman International Masters from 11 countries. The field could get bigger when the entries close on Friday.

The top prize in the Rs. eight lakh event, the richest in the Commonwealth chess history, is Rs. 1.60 lakh. The runner-up will get Rs. 1.15.

Stiff challenge

Ganguly, who made a first-round exit from the ongoing World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk (Russia) on Monday, can expect stiff challenge from fellow GMs like second seeded British youngster Gawain Jones, Abhijjit Kunte, 14-year-old Parimarjan Negi, Pravin Thipsay, R. B. Ramesh, Neelotpal Das, Deepan Chakkravarthy, Tejas Bakre and Dibyendu Barua.

Bangladesh’s Niaz Murshed, Reefat Bin Sattar, Abdulla-Al-Rakib complete the list of GMs.

Teenagers like D. Harika, Aswin Jayaram and Abhijit Gupta are among the leading IMs Sriram Jha, M. R. Venkatesh, Deep Sengupta, S. Kidambi, Arun Prasad, WGMs Nisha Mohota and Asian champion Tania Sachdev, Saptarshi Roy, veteran D. V. Prasad, Himanshu Sharma, S. Satyapragyan and R. R. Laxman are the other leading IMs. Bangladesh’s Enamul Hossain, Pakistan’s Mahmood Lodhi, Australia’s Aleksander Wohl and Malaysia’s Hafizulhelmi Rahman are some of the overseas IMs in the fray.

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