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Young World
Chequered moves
PAVAN KUMAR H.
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They won the team championships at the National level CBSE chess tournament
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MANGALORE
The Rook, Bishop, Knight and Queen are the closest friends of this year’s under 14 national level CBSE chess team champions – Nihal Manjunath, Adith Jagadish, Yashas Salian, Rammohan Bhandari and Akash Harendranath. The ‘famous five’ are eighth standard students of Lourdes Central School and trained by Derik’s Chess School participated in the national chess competition held at Chennai last month. The team scored 19.5 points in the six rounds to win the title. “Every day I practise for three hours at the chess school and sit in front of laptop for two more hours in practising chess. I study previous games of great players on the Internet net and try to solve them online”, says Nihal, the team captain. He doesn’t believe in sparing himself and makes sure he works very hard to sharpen his skills.
Smart moves
His achievements are many. Nihal was the champion at the Under-13 state chess tournament held at his school. He has also represented the nation at the World School Chess Championship in 2006, held at Halkidiki, Greece and finished 27th.
On his future ambition, Nihal says he wants to be a Grand Master. Not surprisingly, his role model is none other than Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinik of erstwhile USSR, tutor of former World number one Gary Kasparov.
“I spend nearly six hours of a day in practicing chess. I do not rely much on the Internet for the practice. I feel it hampers the confidence and talent because of its advanced method”, notes Adith, who aspired to be an engineer. A reticent player, he lets his achievements speak for him. They are many and varied.
He stood sixth at the World Inter School Chess tournament held at Greece and fifth in the Asian Inter School Chess championship at Singapore in the classical category.
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