Having lost the race to the coveted National team chess title in the past decade to the gritty Air India, the mighty Petroleum has learnt its lessons.

Having regained the title last year at Kochi, Petroleum has fielded some of its best players to retain the crown when the action commences at the Clube Tennis de Gaspar Dias here on Monday.

K. Sasikiran, Abhijit Kunte, B. Adhiban — all former National champions — S. Arun Prasad and Deep Sengupta complete Petroleum's all Grandmaster-team.

For the second seed Railways ‘A', lone GM R. R. Laxman figures as a ‘reserve' (fifth player) since the other four players, all International Masters Aghyadip Das, Vikramaditya Kulkarni, M. S. Thejkumar and Swapnil Dhopade have better ratings.

With Parimarjan Negi having left and joined Petroleum but not in the team here, the fourth seeded Air India no longer looks strong enough to regain the title won in 2010. The team — headed by Tejas Bakre, with S. Satyapragyan. K. Priyadarshan and G. B. Joshi — does not look good enough to be among the medals.

In the ladies' section, Air India will be hard to stop. The team consisting of WGM S. Vijayalakshmi, Tania Sachdev and S. Meenakshi and local Bhakti Kulkarni display enough prowess to regain the title.

Air India's strongest challenge comes from second seed Airports Authority of India which has D. Harika, Mary Ann Gomes and an inconsistent Kiran Manisha Mohanty.

Ordinary team

The ladies team from Petroleum looks most ordinary. The seasoned Nisha Mohota and Soumya Swaminathan lack support from the lower boards.

Similarly, former champions and sixth seeds LIC looks less than effective since it depends too much on veterans Swati Ghate, Bindu Saritha and Jayashree Sankpal.

The competition will be played over nine rounds of Swiss League. The team with the best match-points, and not the aggregate points, will be the winner.

The leading teams: Open: 1. Petroleum, 2. Railways ‘A', 3. Railways ‘B', 4. Air India, 5. Karnataka Hoysalas, 6. Maharashtra ‘B', 7. Indian Bank, 8. Tamil Nadu, 9. LIC, 10. Maharashtra ‘A'.

Women: 1. Air India, 2. Airports Authority of India, 3. Petroleum, 4. Tamil Nadu, 5. Chess Gurukul (TN), 6. LIC.

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