MADURAI
The Hindu in School State-level chess competition saw enthusiastic participation of over 260 children from across six districts, including Madurai, Dindigul, Theni, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram and Virudhunagar, here on Saturday.
Boys and girls fought it out on the chess board to emerge as winners at the event that was held at Madurai Institute of Social Sciences (MISS). The tournament was conducted in the swizz system format in which six rounds were conducted per pair and the winner was declared based on the number of points earned. The competition was held in three categories of under 10, 13 and 15 years of age, separately for boys and girls.
The competition was conducted under the aegis of Madurai District Chess Association with arbiters to monitor every team of players with clocks. “The basic criterion for participation was that every student should have a membership of Tamil Nadu State Chess Association. For interested students without membership we facilitated the registration. The competition was a great platform for chess aspirants to hone their skills in the game and to introduce more students to the game,” said chief arbiter B.T. Sethuraman.
After the day long contest, the winners were given prizes. Three prizes apart from seven consolation prizes were given away for boys and girls in each category. Minister for Revenue, IT and Disaster Management R.B. Udayakumar gave away prizes to the top winners. Congratulating the students, he said that sports is an important part of the formative years of a child. “I was also enthusiastic in sports as a student. The AIADMK government has taken steps for the development of sports,” he said.
The Minister also recalled his days as a college student at MISS.
The winners in under 10 (girls) were Sahana S, Solaiyammal A and Madhavi Sri V; winners in under 13 (girls) were Gayathri M, Gupta Saranya V and Sakthi Vaishnavi A.K.; winner in under 15 (girls) were Swetha Sri R, Premakumari S and Yamini R.
The winners in under 10 (boys) were Arulprakash N, Aswin A and Yashwant B; winner in under 13 (boys) were Sriram K, Gokul Vairamuthu and Madhava Krishnan R; winners in under 15 (boys) were Prawin K, Rohit M and Prakash Krishna S.A.
G. Thiagarajan of JSW Steels, title sponsor, A. Rajaram, Chief Divisional Manager of Indian Oil Corporation, moving partner and Captain. D.V.P. Raja, founder-chairman of Madurai Institute of Social Sciences, venue partner, were present.
Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre was the health partner for the event.
